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Alternate solution: do not announce small foodbourne illness outbreaks. In the article's example, 250 people got sick from a lettuce outbreak, and everyone sto

Alternate solution: do not announce small foodbourne illness outbreaks. In the article's example, 250 people got sick from a lettuce outbreak, and everyone stopped buying lettuce, hitting the whole industry. But 5 million people get sick from Norovirus alone in the US every year. Leafy vegetables like lettuce are the most common source of food illness. Telling people about a minor outbreak is just letting them freak out for no good reason. We should be educating people better about foodbourne illness so they can respond without freaking out, and so they don't get sick so damn much. And the media should stop freaking people out. 250 people out of 350 million getting sick, and not even dying? It's a minor risk! 35,000 die in traffic every year, and these people are freaked out by some lettuce. Take a fuckin chance, would ya please? https://youtu.be/X29lF43mUlo https://youtu.be/X29lF43mUlo

komali2 8y ago
Wouldn't it be necessary to know the number of people eating lettuce for this argument to hold weight? For example, I could argue so few people were affected because not many were eating lettuce, and then when news broke, nobody was eating lettuce. I know more people that drive cars than eat lettuce.
prepend 8y ago
The reason only 250 get sick is because of the notification. Traffic accidents aren’t contagious. Comparing a static risk and a dynamic risk is inappropriate. If lettuce is contaminated with ecoli at the source and you don’t recall/stop people eating it, you will have much more adverse health events. Different outbreaks have different responses and sometimes that includes notifying the at risk population and the source of the risk. [0] (this list includes lots of norovirus outbreaks and the response for them) We should also be educating people about food borne illness, but this isn’t exclusive to outbreak control. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/outbreaks/multistate-outbreaks/outbreaks-list.html https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/outbreaks/multistate-outbreak...
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Let's compare the same things, then. 73 million Americans are infected with E.coli every year and 5,000 die. Only 5 died in this outbreak. You think that number was significantly reduced because it was announced that there was a single small outbreak? The outbreak was minor, but the effect on the economy and people's state of mind was overwhelmingly more powerful. It's fine to notify an at risk population if you can, but what do you gain if just a few less people get sick? What do you lose when people stop supporting an entire industry?
  - phonon 8y ago
    What are you talking about? "CDC estimates that each year STEC [Shiga toxin-producing E. coli] causes 265,000 illness, 3,600 hospitalizations and 30 deaths in the United States." https://www.cdc.gov/features/ecoliinfection/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/ecoliinfection/index.html
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      Sorry, I misquoted: it's 75 million cases of food borne illness in general, and 5,000 deaths, using older statistics from smaller population sizes. Using your stats, this outbreak was responsible for 0.1% of e.coli illnesses and 1/6th the deaths. But it's also 1/300,000 of the overall food poisoning illnesses, and 0.1% of the deaths. So it hit the lettuce industry significantly harder than normal, even though the actual effect on health was minimal compared to the norm.
      - phonon 8y ago
        Latest data is Estimated annual number of episodes of illnesses caused by 31 pathogens transmitted commonly by food Domestically acquired foodborne [1] 9,388,075 (6,641,440–12,745,709) Deaths [2] 1,351 (712–2,268) [1] https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-illnesses-foodborne-pathogens.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-i... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-hospitalizations-deaths-foodborne-pathogens.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-h...
woodpanel 8y ago
The article states that 5 people died. Still a minor risk to the population, but a greater risk to brands like Walmart.
vuln 8y ago
The the big news outlets will lose money, remember they get paid by driving fear into the population to get their eyes on ads. Sad.

komali2 8y ago

Wouldn't it be necessary to know the number of people eating lettuce for this argument to hold weight? For example, I could argue so few people were affected because not many were eating lettuce, and then when news broke, nobody was eating lettuce. I know more people that drive cars than eat lettuce.

prepend 8y ago

The reason only 250 get sick is because of the notification. Traffic accidents aren’t contagious. Comparing a static risk and a dynamic risk is inappropriate. If lettuce is contaminated with ecoli at the source and you don’t recall/stop people eating it, you will have much more adverse health events. Different outbreaks have different responses and sometimes that includes notifying the at risk population and the source of the risk. [0] (this list includes lots of norovirus outbreaks and the response for them) We should also be educating people about food borne illness, but this isn’t exclusive to outbreak control. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/outbreaks/multistate-outbreaks/outbreaks-list.html https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/outbreaks/multistate-outbreak...

peterwwillis 8y ago
Let's compare the same things, then. 73 million Americans are infected with E.coli every year and 5,000 die. Only 5 died in this outbreak. You think that number was significantly reduced because it was announced that there was a single small outbreak? The outbreak was minor, but the effect on the economy and people's state of mind was overwhelmingly more powerful. It's fine to notify an at risk population if you can, but what do you gain if just a few less people get sick? What do you lose when people stop supporting an entire industry?
- phonon 8y ago
  What are you talking about? "CDC estimates that each year STEC [Shiga toxin-producing E. coli] causes 265,000 illness, 3,600 hospitalizations and 30 deaths in the United States." https://www.cdc.gov/features/ecoliinfection/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/ecoliinfection/index.html
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    Sorry, I misquoted: it's 75 million cases of food borne illness in general, and 5,000 deaths, using older statistics from smaller population sizes. Using your stats, this outbreak was responsible for 0.1% of e.coli illnesses and 1/6th the deaths. But it's also 1/300,000 of the overall food poisoning illnesses, and 0.1% of the deaths. So it hit the lettuce industry significantly harder than normal, even though the actual effect on health was minimal compared to the norm.
    - phonon 8y ago
      Latest data is Estimated annual number of episodes of illnesses caused by 31 pathogens transmitted commonly by food Domestically acquired foodborne [1] 9,388,075 (6,641,440–12,745,709) Deaths [2] 1,351 (712–2,268) [1] https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-illnesses-foodborne-pathogens.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-i... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-hospitalizations-deaths-foodborne-pathogens.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/pdfs/scallan-estimated-h...

woodpanel 8y ago

The article states that 5 people died. Still a minor risk to the population, but a greater risk to brands like Walmart.

vuln 8y ago

The the big news outlets will lose money, remember they get paid by driving fear into the population to get their eyes on ads. Sad.