Former BB guestblogstress Maggie Koerth-Baker has a piece up on MSN today about food-borne illnesses — a topic near and dear to my gut, having just spent a few weeks on the road in rural Central America, where every food choice one makes as a visitor is not so much, “will this taste good” as “how likely is this to give me a week’s worth of the runs”?
“Ironically, three days after turning that in, I actually came down with what is likely mild foodborne illness myself,” tweeted Maggie, “It’s fun!”
Here’s a snip from the section about Campylobacter (shown above, from Flickr user dokidok’s stream):
Campy” is the leading cause of bacteria-related diarrhea in the United States, according to the Food and Drug Administration. In fact, experts say it’s likely you’ve had a run-in with Campy before, and just not realized it. So why the low profile?
There are a couple of reasons. First off, campy’s just not that mean of a bug. Catch it and you can expect a week of flu-like symptoms, plus diarrhea. “I’m not volunteering to get it, but at the same time it generally doesn’t result in hospitalization or death,” says Jim Dickson, a professor of animal science at Iowa State University and head of the multi-university Food Safety Consortium.
Campy’s pattern of infection is also a factor. The big-name food sickness outbreaks tend to be multi-state affairs, involving hundreds of people. Campy, in contrast, is more sporadic. An “outbreak” often means a bad week for one family. That’s because this bug is a delicate creature. Heat it up, dry it out, deprive it of oxygen–lots of things will kill it quickly.
Take a Bite Out of Food-Borne Illnesses This Summer (MSN Health)