Risk - Based Regulatory Responses in Global Food Trade : Guatemalan Raspberry Imports Into the U . S . and Canada , 1996 - 1998

While health officials were understandably reluctant to implicate any specific food, others immediately observed that in the previous two years, approximately 2,500 North Americans had been stricken with cyclospora, almost exclusively linked to the consumption of fresh raspberries from Guatemala, and at almost the exact same time of year (Robertson, 1998). But something was different this year. In the past, cases tended to be clustered in large urban centres throughout North America. In 1998, however, only people in and around Toronto were getting sick; people in the U.S. had apparently been spared the painful and persistent diarrhea associated with cyclospora infection.