CDC/FDA/FSIS Hold Meeting on Foodborne Illness Source Attribution

A  public meeting sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in January addressed  federal efforts to advance tri-agency understanding of foodborne illness source attribution and to develop a path forward towards harmonizing estimates of foodborne illness source attribution for priority pathogens.

The CDC/FDA/FSIS Foodborne Illness Source Attribution meeting also introduced the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC), which was formed in response to stakeholder input and the desire for federal food safety agency collaboration to design and conduct projects that provide a unified approach to foodborne illness source attribution.

The IFSAC Strategic Plan is broken down into short- and long-term goals.  Short-terms goals, taking place over the next 1-2 years, will focus on the “best current” foodborne illness source attribution fractions for priority pathogens and developing a strategy for engaging stakeholders.  The priority pathogens, Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter, as they are: responsible for 21% of illnesses, 56% hospitalizations, and 54% death in U.S.; food safety risk management strategies targeted on these pathogens could have a large public health impact; and regulatory agencies have been implementing risk management strategies for these pathogens.

Long-term goals (three to five years) are to develop foodborne source attribution estimates and uncertainty bounds and improve data and methods to reduce uncertainty.  The intended outcomes are appropriate methods to determine the foodborne illness source attribution using a variety of data sources and to generate both blended and harmonized food source attribution estimates.

Meeting materials are available here.