United States
In the United States, using FoodNet data from 2000 to 2007, the CDC estimated there were 47.8 million foodborne illnesses per year (16,000 cases for 100,000 inhabitants) with 9.4 million of these caused by 31 known identified pathogens. 127,839 were hospitalized (43 per 100,000 inhabitants per year). 3,037 people died (1.0 per 100,000 inhabitants per year). United Kingdom
According to a 2012 report from the Food Standards Agency, there were around a million cases of foodborne illness per year (1,580 cases for 100,000 inhabitants). 20,000 were hospitalized (32 per 100,000 inhabitants);
500 people died (0.80 per 100,000 inhabitants). France
This data pertains to reported medical cases of 23 specific pathogens in the 1990s, as opposed to total population estimates of all foodborne illness for the United States.In France, for 750,000 cases (1,210 per 100,000 inhabitants):
70,000 people consulted in the emergency department of a hospital (113 per 100,000 inhabitants);
113,000 people were hospitalized (182 per 100,000 inhabitants);
460 people died (0.75 per 100,000 inhabitants). Australia
A study by the Australian National University, published in November 2014, found in 2010 that there were an estimated 4.1 million cases of foodborne gastroenteritis acquired in Australia on average each year, along with 5,140 cases of non-gastrointestinal illness. The study was funded by the Australian Department of Health, Food Standards Australia New Zealand and the NSW Food Authority.The main causes were Norovirus, pathogenic Escherichia coli, Campylobacter spp. and non-typhoidal Salmonella spp., although the causes of approximately 80% of illnesses were unknown.
The death of 21 people in the 1996 Wishaw outbreak of E. coli O157 was a precursor to the establishment of the Food Standards Agency which, according to Tony Blair in the 1998 white paper A Force for Change Cm 3830, "would be powerful, open and dedicated to the interests of consumers".In May 2015, for the second year running, Englands Food Standards Agency devoted its annual Food Safety Week to – "The Chicken Challenge". The focus was on the handling of raw chicken in the home and in catering facilities in a drive to reduce the high levels of food poisoning from the campylobacter bacterium. Anne Hardy argues that widespread public education of food hygiene can be useful, particularly through media (TV cookery programmes) and advertisement. She points to the examples set by Scandinavian societies. United States
In 2001, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the United States Department of Agriculture to require meat packers to remove spinal cords before processing cattle carcasses for human consumption, a measure designed to lessen the risk of infection by variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.