Chicken, turkey and other poultry is still the leading cause of food poisoning outbreaks, according to health officials. Leafy vegetables and beef are next in line.
A new report, released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), contains an overview of outbreaks that occurred in 2007.
About half were caused by salmonella and other bacteria. While viruses – such as Norovirus – caused about 40 percent. Mushroom toxin and other chemical agents 7 percent and parasites 1 percent.
Nearly 1,100 outbreaks involving 21,244 individual illnesses were covered by the data, supplied by public health laboratories in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
In all, 18 people died in 2007 as a result of contaminated food.
More than 87 million cases of food-borne illness occur each year in the U.S. which include 371,000 hospitalizations and 5,700 deaths, according to the AP calculation that combines a CDC formula with recent population estimates.
Read the report in the CDC MMWR Weekly.
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