Poor US food safety and media bias

[Guo Xiang]

Saw this in a news article:

An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick every year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: Reuters

Okay, I've known for sometime that the US food safety is bad, but I never realised it's this bad.

But it didn't seem like something that gets reported and played up like China always get. In fact, US food safety problems get pretty much swept under the rug or played down by media worldwide. And 'cos food is hardly a regular news item on general news, nobody would know and blissfully thought US food products are almightily safe and of heavenly quality, which is far from the truth.

Or is it Mr. RM at work again?

[warlock110]

Saw this in a news article:



Okay, I've known for sometime that the US food safety is bad, but I never realised it's this bad.

But it didn't seem like something that gets reported and played up like China always get. In fact, US food safety problems get pretty much swept under the rug or played down by media worldwide. And 'cos food is hardly a regular news item on general news, nobody would know and blissfully thought US food products are almightily safe and of heavenly quality, which is far from the truth.

Or is it Mr. RM at work again?

you can make stats say anything lol.

[Guo Xiang]

you can make stats say anything lol.

Not sure what you meant, but at least those stats weren't from me or wiki.

[yittz]

Warlock isn't saying the stats are made up, he's saying it's misrepresented.

1 in 4 people in US get sick from food per year doesn't sound too bad. I mean I am sure everyone remembers the last time they got a bout of gastro.

It's not clear if 5000 die primarily due to gastro, or due to gastro alone etc. If they are in bad shape to begin with, it doesn't take much to tip them over the edge. 5000 out of 76million is like 0.065%.

See how statistics can be abused by the media?

[Trien Chieu]

Okay, I've known for sometime that the US food safety is bad, but I never realised it's this bad.

US/Canadian food safety is not perfect but still among the best, if not the best, in the world.

If I have a choice between US/Canadian food and food from some third world countries, I would definitely get the US/Canadian food even if the price of US/Canadian food is higher (no more than 50% higher). I would rather pay $1.50 for the same food item from the US/Canada than $1.00 from china anyday.

[warlock110]

Warlock isn't saying the stats are made up, he's saying it's misrepresented.

1 in 4 people in US get sick from food per year doesn't sound too bad. I mean I am sure everyone remembers the last time they got a bout of gastro.

It's not clear if 5000 die primarily due to gastro, or due to gastro alone etc. If they are in bad shape to begin with, it doesn't take much to tip them over the edge. 5000 out of 76million is like 0.065%.

See how statistics can be abused by the media?

yeah lol, i eat too much and get sick all the time, but that's not a big deal, i get better in a few hours haha.

[Guo Xiang]

Oh really now? But how many slip ups are there, to actually allow a potential risk of 76 million people getting sick and 5,000 deaths? Is mispresented statistics worse than treating people/deaths as mere statistics, which is exactly what you have done, Yittz?

5000 out of 76million is like 0.065%.

And if you are going to do that, the correct calculation should be 76 million people or 5000 against total US population, which should be around 300 million if I remember correctly. But in comparison, I guess 5000 dead people is nothing.

If you guys would look through this list...

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm

The stats might be mispresented, but there is no denying there is something very wrong with the US food system.

The US government has also repeated admitted that its food safety system and issues are very serious. Why else would they want to give it an overhaul?

[Trien Chieu]

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm

The stats might be mispresented, but there is no denying there is something very wrong with the US food system.

US food system is not perfect, but still among the best if not the best.
Can you name a country that has better food system than the US?

[ChuckC]

The American food system is superior only in terms of its efficiency. Qualitywise it is far from the best. This probably has to do with the food content itself, as well as the chemicals used to increase the food's appearance and inhibit bacteria.

The U.S. is ranked at #30 in terms of overall life expectancy, according to Wikipedia. The Asian countries of Japan and Hong Kong just destroy Americans in terms of life expectancy, which rank in the top 5. Heart disease is the #1 killer in the United States.

While this obviously has to do with a lot of different factors, I can't help but think it starts with what Americans are putting in their stomachs.

[Ren Ying Ying]

The stats might be mispresented, but there is no denying there is something very wrong with the US food system.

The US government has also repeated admitted that its food safety system and issues are very serious. Why else would they want to give it an overhaul?

There is always something wrong with the food system until the day zero people "die" from food ingestion illnesses. In other words, there is always room for improvement a system. Surely the US FDA is far from perfect, but then again, which country is? And even if the system is perfect, people are not perfect. Those who run the system are bound to make a mistake.

But again, the mention of possible statistical misrepresentation is only a critical analysis of the report rather than defending a system.

[yittz]

Oh really now? But how many slip ups are there, to actually allow a potential risk of 76 million people getting sick and 5,000 deaths? Is mispresented statistics worse than treating people/deaths as mere statistics, which is exactly what you have done, Yittz?



And if you are going to do that, the correct calculation should be 76 million people or 5000 against total US population, which should be around 300 million if I remember correctly. But in comparison, I guess 5000 dead people is nothing.

If you guys would look through this list...

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm

The stats might be mispresented, but there is no denying there is something very wrong with the US food system.

The US government has also repeated admitted that its food safety system and issues are very serious. Why else would they want to give it an overhaul?

I am not saying this isn't important, nor that 5000 isn't 5000 too many nor saying US has good standards. Just pointing out statistics can be bent to serve any purpose ie explaining warlock's point, I was merely demonstrating how the media could have easily sold the exact opposite story with the same data.

Epidemiology is looking at each person as a number. The data also doesn't go into what's responsible for the 76million cases of food poisoning. There could be several explanations, too much eating out, bad food hygiene at home etc, global warming, eating too much shark fin etc.