Por Otto Rodriguez
Miami-Dade Health
The recent and nation-wide recall of vegetables and salads from big supermarkets such as Trader’s Joe is a powerful reminder that foodborne illnesses can have a serious impact on public health.
Salads and all kind of produce usually rank high on the list of recalled foods but, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are some other culprits that consumers should keep in mind.
The type of bacteria most likely to cause serious illnesses were listeria, salmonella, and STEC. In fact, salmonella and listeria have been found in many foods that weren’t previously considered a risk, like cereal, crackers, and peanuts.
In most healthy adults, many foodborne illnesses will be a temporary thing, however, for those who have other health issues, they can be serious and even deadly. Those who are immunocompromised, including people with HIV, those who are undergoing chemotherapy, very young children whose immune systems haven’t developed yet, pregnant women, and elderly people are more at risk, experts say.
CDC reported over 5,700 outbreaks in the US between 2009 and 2015. The foods that were most often implicated in these outbreaks were: dairy (12 percent), fish (18 percent), and chicken (11 percent).
The researchers also found that norovirus was responsible for 38 percent of the outbreaks, salmonella for another 30 percent, and Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) was associated with six percent of cases.
For more information about food recalls, you can visit the CDC website.
