By the Numbers

— In a June 1998 report published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, each year an estimated 883,705 Americans contract salmonella from eggs. Government and university scientists also calculated that 2.3 million of the 46.8 billion shell eggs produced annually in the United Stated are infected with the bacteria.

— Australian Associated Press reports that according to Food Science Australia food safety manager Bruce Shay, Australians consume 19 billion meals a year and contract 2 million cases of food poisoning. The annual cost: $1.9 billion in medical costs and lost wages.

— Cumulative annual data on the total disease burden related to food-borne illnesses in the United States is not easy to come by. Sadly, some of the most current was published by the USDA in 1995 (and most recently republished by the Austin 360 Health News in July 1998). The following data, extracted from that report, includes the total number of cases, deaths and estimated costs for selected human pathogens in the United States during 1993.

Disease	Cases	Deaths	Cost
Campylobacter jejuni or coli	1.375 to 1.750 million	110 to 511	$0.6 to $1.0 billion.
Clostridium perfringens	10,000	100	$0.1 billion.
Escherichia coli O157:H7	8,000 to 16,000	160 to 400	$0.2 to $0.6 billion.
Listeria monocytogenes	1,526 to 1,767	378 to 485	$0.2 to $0.3 billion.
Salmonella	898,000 to 3,840,000	898 to 3,840	$0.6 to $3.5 billion.
Staphylococcus aureus	1.513 million	1,210	$1.2 billion.
Toxoplasma gondil	3,056	41	$2.7 billion.
Totals	3,606,582 to 7,133,823	2,695 to 8,587	$5.6 to $9.4 billion.

It is worth noting that, due to the centralization of the food industry, the change in our nation’s eating habits (the average family reportedly now spends more than half its food dollar on restaurant and takeout food), and an increase in food imports, most experts believe that incidents of food borne-related illnesses have continued to increase since these numbers were gathered.