Study Puts Cost of Foodborne Illness at Almost $78 Billion

Jan 5 2012 --- The cost of foodborne illness to the US economy is $77.7 billion according to estimates by Dr. Robert Scharff of Ohio University.

The figure which was published in the Journal of Food Protection is roughly half his previous estimate of $152 billion.

 

Scharff claims that the new study will radically alter the way foodborne illness is compensated for by US companies, he writes that “consequently, economic studies based on the previous estimates are now obsolete.”

 

The study follows the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently revising its estimates from 76 million to 48 million for the annual number of foodborne illnesses contracted domestically by Americans.

 

The Ohio University study provided improved and updated estimates of the cost of foodborne illness by adding a replication of the 2011 CDC model to existing cost-of-illness models.

 

The CDC study showed that the most common foodborne illnesses in the previous year were the norovirus, nontyphoidal-salmonella and clostridium perfringens. The study estimated that around 5.5 million Americans contracted the norovirus in the previous year accounting for over half of all cases of foodborne illness. 

 

Scharff’s study built upon the CDC study but replaced their productivity loss estimate with a pain, suffering, and functional disability measure that they claim more accurately reflects the true cost to food companies.

 

Scharff’s estimate puts the average cost per case of foodborne illness at $1,626. Ohio University combined their model with the CDC figures to reach the figure of $77.7 billion. 

 

The University acknowledges the limitations of the study and state that the true cost to the food industry is likely even higher as their model cannot ‘account for reduced consumer confidence, recall losses, or litigation’’