Available Online: Interagency Webinar on Attribution of Foodborne Illness
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have posted a recording of their most recent webinar, which detailed progress toward attributing foodborne illnesses to food sources. The webinar, “Are Outbreak Illnesses Representative of Sporadic Illnesses?” was presented on Jan. 10, 2014, by the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC), a tri-agency partnership focused on projects related to attribution of foodborne illnesses.
The presentation featured an analysis of data collected by CDC’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) and compared the characteristics of illnesses associated with outbreaks with those that are not linked to outbreaks. The results of the analysis suggest that: