An epidemic in the making

Scripps Howard News Service: The tainted spinach that killed at least three and sickened more than 100 should have been a warning. But as regularly happens with food-borne illnesses, once the scare passes so does the urgency to detect and prevent them.
The public tends to take the safety of our food supply for granted. But as food production and handling becomes more concentrated and mechanized, the very real potential for tragedy grows.
Food poisoning is a "hidden epidemic," killing or sickening more than 50,000 people in a five-year period, Scripps Howard News Service reporter Thomas Hargrove found in a study of 6,374 food-related disease outbreaks reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But because of incomplete or even nonexistent reporting by the states, the true incidence, with its attendant costs in lost lives and time, is almost certainly much higher. The truth is, as Hargrove writes in "Fatal Food," most outbreaks go undiagnosed because, with a few notable exceptions, most states are woefully unprepared to do so.
States are blinded
The states generally lack the technology and expertise to spot outbreaks of illness that are food-related, warn unwary consumers to stop the illness from spreading and identify the specific pathogens so the victims can be treated.
Wisconsin diagnoses the cause of 90 percent of its food-related illnesses; Alabama, only 5 percent. The national average is 36 percent, leaving a huge hole in the public health safety net.
The situation cries out for a more proactive federal role, and the CDC must lay down some rules, see that the states abide by them and spotlight those who don't. There must be uniform national standards for identifying and reporting food-borne illnesses. And there must be minimum standards for the states' testing laboratories, which now vary all over the lot in capacity and capabilities.
If this upgrading requires federal help, so be it. The investment in stopping a debilitating epidemic is worth it. We can't say we weren't warned.