Whats Bugging the Food?
The leading cause of bacterial diarrhea in the United States, Campylobacter jejuni bacteria, induces up to 10 percent of all cases. Of the patients infected with this bacterium, about 1 in 1,000 dies. Half of the C. jejuni infections are associated with eating or handling chickens. Indeed, surveys show the bacterium contaminates from 20 to 100 percent of retail raw chickens. Other prime sources are unpasteurized milk, non-chlorinated water, and cross-contamination — as can occur, for instance, from using the same cutting board to cut up raw chicken and then vegetables without cleaning in between. “The second most frequent bacterial offender is probably the more familiar Salmonella bacterium, causing roughly 2 million to 4 million salmonellosis cases annually,” says Wallace Garthright, Ph.D., a mathematician with the Food and Drug Administration’s biometric and risk assessment branch, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Individuals with AIDS, and possibly late-stage HIV (human
