Are you worried about food-borne illnesses, such as the latest, Cyclospora?
This one is caused by a one-celled parasite. It causes watery diarrhea, often explosive, abdominal cramping, and other symptoms. It is harder to track than other food-borne illnesses, which begin within hours after a meal, because the incubation period may be a week. Symptoms may follow a remitting-relapsing course lasting a month or longer. The current outbreak, reported in 34 states, has been traced to a farm in central Mexico that supplied Taco Bell and many other restaurants. Taco Bell stopped serving shredded lettuce and other suspect items such as basil and cilantro.
This outbreak is a small part of a growing problem, as the graph shows.
One recent analysis concluded that leafy greens alone are responsible for as many as 2,307,558 illnesses annually in the U.S. The economic cost of these illnesses is estimated to be up to $5.278 billion.
Travelers to Mexico are warned about raw foods. Now, especially after NAFTA, these same foods are in your grocery store. With globalization and central processing, contaminated food can be widely distributed. American agriculture also has sanitation problems; the most serious outbreaks from romaine lettuce were traced to California and Arizona.
Dr. Malone recommends growing your own—not practical for most. Things you can do: avoid bagged salad greens; buy whole heads of lettuce, discard outer leaves, and wash thoroughly. Wash greens or berries under running water for a full minute—consider forgoing things like raspberries that crevices. Scrub or peel produce if possible. Cooking is only the way to kill the parasite. Cyclospora is resistant to disinfectants including those containing chlorine. Scrub surfaces and utensils thoroughly.
Cyclospora infection is treatable. The first-line drug is sulfa-trimethoprim. Be sure to let the laboratory know to search specifically for this pathogen.
The best protection against food-borne illness is gamma irradiation. It is cheap, effective, safe, and FDA-approved. The food also keeps much longer, even without refrigeration. Astronauts are given irradiated food to prevent food poisoning in space.
American consumers, however, cannot get it. Is that because Big Food does not want to publicize the problems (e.g., that the majority of poultry products are contaminated with Salmonella)? Or have antinuclear activists convinced Americans that all radiation is dangerous? Yes, the food is irradiated with a dose that would kill you, but the food does NOT become radioactive (neither do you when you get an X-ray). The chemical changes in the food are minor; it is difficult to determine that it has been irradiated.
We have known of this solution for decades. Instead of using it, we allow all Americans to face the risk of potentially fatal disease when we cannot control all the sources of contamination in the global food chain.
Additional Information:
- “Is Food Safe?” Civil Defense Perspectives, July 1995.
- “What is Food Irradiation and Why is it Important?” International Atomic Energy Agency
