Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) in 2012: A Foundation for Food Safety in the United States

Foodborne disease is an important public health problem in the United States, with an estimated 9.4 million domestically acquired illnesses and 1351 deaths from known pathogens each year [1]. The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) tracks important foodborne illnesses, generating information that provides a foundation for food safety policy and prevention efforts. FoodNet has provided information that contributes to food safety efforts by estimating numbers of foodborne illnesses, monitoring trends in incidence of specific foodborne illnesses over time, attributing illnesses to specific foods and settings, and disseminating information [2, 3]. Since it started in 1996, FoodNet has been an excellent example of partnership among federal and state agencies (Figure 1). This Clinical Infectious Diseases supplement contains a variety of articles that provide new information on current issues; together, they highlight FoodNet’s central role in US surveillance and investigation of foodborne disease. FoodNet’s core work is ongoing active, population-based surveillance for laboratory-confirmed infections caused by 9 pathogens transmitted commonly through food, as well as for hemolytic uremic syndrome. Several articles in this supplement report on these core data, examining trends and providing regulatory and public health agencies, industry, and consumer groups with data needed to prioritize and evaluate food safety interventions and monitor progress toward national health objectives. For example, Ong et al [4] report the dramatic decline in Yersinia enterocolitica infections since 1996, particularly among young black children. Not all the news is good, however; Newton et al [5] analyze data from FoodNet and the Cholera and Other Vibrio Illness Surveillance System (COVIS), showing that Vibrio infections have increased nationally. Two articles in this supplement examine FoodNet surveillance data on invasive listeriosis. The article by Silk et al [6] summarizes trends in surveillance data from 2004 to 2009, whereas Pouillot et al [7] use FoodNet surveillance data to estimate the relative risk of listeriosis by age, pregnancy, and ethnicity, providing new insights into variations in risk across the population. Together, these articles emphasize that to substantially decrease the incidence of listeriosis, prevention measures should target higher-risk groups, particularly pregnant women, especially Hispanics, and older adults. Hall et al [8] examine trends in Cyclospora infection, showing that outbreaks and international travel play an unusually large role in the epidemiology of these infections and suggesting that prevention efforts would most effectively focus on foods from and travel to endemic areas.