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  • the bottom line messages that foodborne disease steel is an important problem in this country, that it hasn't gotten much worse.

  • But it also hasn't gotten much better.

  • Over the past six weeks, there have been two major news stories about food safety that have come out that have suggested that in fact, the food supplies getting safer and it will even get safer in the future based on recent legislation.

  • First of all is the fact that the study that the senator's these control and prevention released in December, suggesting that there was big differences in the numbers of foodborne disease cases, including deaths between 1999 and now actually is not the case as that there had been a substantial drop from 78 million cases, down to about 49 million cases, that there'd been a drop from 5000 dust of 3000 deaths and saying, Look a while we've made great advances.

  • That was really a statistical artifact.

  • But really, for the last 11 years the numbers have been flat, that basically there haven't been any major changes.

  • The second thing is is that the Food Modernization Act, which was passed and signed into law in early January.

  • The problem was there was absolutely no money provided to fund that particular walk.

  • And so many of the provision in there that would actually help improve food safety will not be able to be carried out without resources.

  • And when people say well, but in this very cash strapped kind of budget, tight world, why do that?

  • The cost benefit of doing this is huge.

  • The cost of food borne disease far far outstrips the investment in trying to prevent it.

  • And so our goal is to really help people understand that we need either from an industry perspective or from a government perspective, invest more in food safety both to protect the public, but also at the same time actually have ah cost benefit in return of having must be borne disease.

the bottom line messages that foodborne disease steel is an important problem in this country, that it hasn't gotten much worse.

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