The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally published an update to the 1999 Mead, et al. figures estimating the burden of foodborne illness – and the numbers are down.

The new, much-to-be-quoted figure is 1-in-6 Americans get sick from the food and water they consume each year, down from the 1-in-4 figure of 1999. That’s 47.8 million sickies instead of 76 million.

It’s still too high. And doesn’t seem to account for active surveillance work done in Australia and Canada, which, along with the World Health Organization, has pegged the incidence of foodborne illness as high as 1-in-3.

According to press releases, the U.S. numbers are down because:

•CDC officials no longer include people who were only vomiting for a day or who only had one or two episodes of diarrhea because they know that real foodborne illnesses cause symptoms that last longer.

•CDC’s surveillance data is much more comprehensive than it was in 1999.

• Most norovirus is not spread by the foodborne route, which has reduced the estimate of foodborne norovirus from 9.2 to approximately 5.5 million cases per year. Because of data and method improvements, the 1999 and current estimates cannot be compared to measure trends.

CDC’s FoodNet surveillance system data, which tracks trends among common foodborne pathogens, has documented a decrease of 20 percent in illnesses from key pathogens during the past 10 years. However, these FoodNet pathogens make up only a small proportion of the illnesses included in the new estimates.

Among the additional findings for foodborne illness due to known pathogens:

• Salmonella was the leading cause of estimated hospitalizations and deaths, responsible for about 28 percent of deaths and 35 percent of hospitalizations due to known pathogens transmitted by food.

• About 90 percent of estimated illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths were due to seven pathogens: Salmonella, norovirus, Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, E.coli O157, Listeria and Clostridium perfringens.

• Nearly 60 percent of estimated illnesses, but a much smaller proportion of severe illness, was caused by norovirus.

The full report is available online at http://www.cdc.gov/eid. For more detailed information on the estimates and methods, visit http://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden.