FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC"), and USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service ("FSIS") recently announced the development of an improved method for analyzing outbreak data to trace the cause of foodborne illness caused by the four major foodborne bacteria: Salmonella, E. Coli, Listeria, and Camplyobacter. CDC estimates that these four pathogens cause 1.9 million cases of foodborne illness in the United States each year. On February 24, 2015, the three agencies released a report on the new method, produced by the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration ("IFSAC"). The agencies anticipate IFSAC's work will enhance their efforts to prevent foodborne illness. Some of the findings of the report include that more than 80 percent of E. Coli illnesses were attributed to beef and vegetables grown in rows. The report also traces Salmonella infections to a wider variety of foods, ranging from tomatoes to sprouts to chicken, beef, and pork. The interagency report comes on the heels of President Obama's and a group of Democratic senators' and representatives' proposals for a single food safety agency.
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