States graded on reporting food-borne illness outbreaks, 14 given Fs

A public interest group has compiled a nationwide report card, grading the 50 states and the District of Columbia on the quality and frequency of reporting food-borne outbreaks.

States have come under increasing criticism over the way they report food-borne  illness outbreaks, especially those linked to contaminated foods.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest held two states to a higher standard in this regard: Oregon and Minnesota, each which was heralded for their elaborate public health and safety departments. On average over the last ten years, CSPI researchers found that Oregon reports 9 outbreaks per million people per year and Minnesota reports 8 per million per year. Those numbers are the highest in the nation.

Five other states received A grades from the group, which examined a decade’s worth of records compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Washington and Wyoming.

On the other end, 14 states received failing grades for the response to food-borne outbreaks: Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia.

“States that aggressively investigate outbreaks and report them to CDC can help nail down the foods that are responsible for making people sick,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “But when states aren’t detecting outbreaks, interviewing victims, identifying suspect food sources, or connecting with federal officials, outbreaks can grow larger and more frequent, putting more people at risk.”

Lower grades were given to states with poorly-funded health and safety departments, ill-equipping them to spot, report and resolve food-borne illness outbreaks.

Solved outbreaks, CSPI noted, have declined nationwide over the last 10 years, indicating states are having a more difficult time funding their health departments.

States receiving B grades were Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont.

Cs went to Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

States which almost failed were Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.