One of the valuable services our government provides related to food borne illnesses (aka food poisoning) is investigation into the causes of food borne illness outbreaks. It’s an important job, and one that we (the private sector) are ill-equipped to complete. That’s why it’s very disturbing to see that that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is continuing to close its investigations without solving the source of illness.
The information is publicly available and disappointing! NINE outbreaks have completed their investigations, and ended unsolved. This is simply unacceptable. If we fail to identify the causes of outbreaks, then we cannot improve the systems that lead to outbreaks.
Our co-counsel Bill Marler of Netflix fame recently wrote a blog post talking about the changes he’d enact in the food industry if he had a magic wand. As he notes:
A dirty truth is that most culture-confirmed illnesses are never attributable to a food source, so people never know what sickened or killed them. Not because the source was not food, but because we fail to invest adequate resources in the epidemiologists that investigate illnesses and track those illnesses to the cause.
Our government agencies need to do better!
Until then, Darr Law will continue to do what it can to help those people harmed by food borne illnesses. If we can be of help, please don’t hesitate to contact us!