Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States.

* Surveillance of foodborne illness is complicated by several factors:

-- Milder cases often are not detected through routine surveillance.

-- Many pathogens transmitted through food also can spread through water or from person to person.

-- Some proportion of foodborne illness is caused by pathogens or agents that have not yet been identified and thus cannot be diagnosed.

* Many of the pathogens of greatest concern today were not recognized as causes of foodborne illness just 20 years ago. These include

-- Campylobacter jejuni,

-- Escherichia coli 0157:H7,

-- Listeria monocytogenes, and

-- Cyclospora cayetanensis.

* Previous figures about the incidence and impact of foodborne disease have been made obsolete by changes in the food supply, the identification of new diseases, and the availability of new surveillance data.

* Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have compiled and analyzed information from multiple surveillance systems and other sources.

* They estimate that each year in the United States, foodborne diseases cause approximately

-- 76 million illnesses,

-- 325,000 hospitalizations, and

-- 5,000 deaths.

* Known pathogens account for an estimated

-- 14 million illnesses,

-- 60,000 hospitalizations, and

-- 1,800 deaths.

* Three pathogens, Salmonella, Listeria, and Toxoplasma, are responsible for 1,500 deaths each year, more than 75 percent of the deaths caused by known pathogens.

* Unknown agents account for the remaining

-- 62 million illnesses,

-- 265,000 hospitalizations, and

-- 3,200 deaths.

* Overall, foodborne diseases appear to cause more illnesses but fewer deaths than previously estimated.