I finished our U.S. taxes early this morning and filed before the April 15 deadline.

Amy wasn’t taking advantage of our full deductions, so I pompously declared I would do the taxes this year – my first time filing in the U.S. – and then of course waited until the last day to file.

They’re done, at least until we get audited, so it’s back to foodborne illness and the annual FoodNet data which is awesome because it provides an annual snapshot, and sucks because it shows nothing is changing.

All the talk in Washington, all the outbreaks, all the Pulitzer-prize winning media coverage, all the ridiculously boring coverage of so-called foodborne illness in the vanity presses by those who can afford them and … the incidence of foodborne illness isn’t changing. So maybe it’s time to do something different.

In 2009, a total of 17,468 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection were identified. In comparison with the first 3 years of surveillance (1996–1998), sustained declines in the reported incidence of infections caused by Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157, Shigella, and Yersinia were observed. The incidence of Vibrio infection continued to increase. Compared with the preceding 3 years (2006–2008), significant decreases in the reported incidence of Shigella and STEC O157 infections were observed. For most infections, reported incidence was highest among children aged <4 years; the percentage of persons hospitalized and the case fatality rate (CFR) were highest among persons aged ≥50 years. In 2009, the Healthy People 2010 target of ≤1.0 case per 100,000 population for STEC O157 infection (objective 10-1b) was met (2). Further collaborative efforts with regulatory agencies and industry are needed to sustain and extend recent declines and to improve prevention of foodborne infections.

Maybe someone should take leadership and stop gassing on about collaboration.

\