In 1984, the Pope visited the restored 350-year-old Jesuit mission of Ste. Marie-among-the-Hurons in Midland, Ontario. After departing,1,600 hungry Ontario Provincial Police officers who had worked the ropes gathered for a boxed lunch. Of those 500 officers who chose ones with roast beef sandwiches, 423 came down with salmonella.

Those officers have shown, over the years, that a touch of the flu — as foodborne illness is often mistakenly called– is more than a couple of days praying at the porcelin goddess of foodborne illness. Some 5-10 per cent of those police officers have developed reactive arthritis that will plague them for life.

Lauren Neergaard of Associated Press writes today about foodborne illness: the gift that keeps giving, sometimes years later.

Donna Rosenbaum of the consumer advocacy group STOP, Safe Tables Our Priority, said,

"We’re drastically underestimating the burden on society that foodborne illnesses represent."

The story says this month,  STOP is beginning the first national registry of food-poisoning survivors with long-term health problems – people willing to share their medical histories with scientists in hopes of boosting much-needed research.