Surprising fact: We are actually NOT seeing more food recalls this year compared with recent years.
What we are seeing is an increase in the number of illnesses caused by contaminated food. This year is the largest ever cyclospora outbreak and the third-largest foodborne illness outbreak of any kind on record.
The involvement of high-profile companies and declining trust in health agencies may be fueling more coverage of recalls in the news and on social media but the reality is more complicated.
The annual number of recalls isn’t a reliable indicator of whether our food is safe or not. It doesn’t take into account other key indicators like volume of product recalled or how much illness is being caused by contaminated food.
Also, a higher number of recalls might not indicate more contaminated products. It could mean more enforcement or more company testing of the same universe of bad products.
It’s hard to fully understand what is happening with the information that’s available.
But what we do know is that government policies are putting us at increasing risk to foodborne illnesses.
Cuts to funding and staff have hurt both federal and state food safety programs and public health communications. And key policies like the Food Traceability Rule, which requires companies to rapidly track recalled products to speed up outbreak investigations, have been delayed for 15 years.
The United States would have more funding for food safety if they spent less funding on the wars in Iran and Ukraine which they have done on behalf of Israel
