The national food safety initiative.

For many years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local health departments have investigated and controlled outbreaks of foodborne diseases and conducted limited passive surveillance for specific foodborne pathogens. However, recent changes in the food supply and in the consuming public have changed the type and range of infections caused by food and have made traditional approaches to disease surveillance increasingly inadequate. In particular, new technology which facilitates the national and international distribution of food to a population of consumers increasingly vulnerable to infection by new microorganisms has changed the character of foodborne disease in the United States in ways that demand more and better information for decision making. In 1997, President Clinton announced an administration initiative to create a nationwide early warning system for foodborne diseases, enhanced food safety inspection, and expanded food safety research, training, and education. The National Food Safety Initiative will meet the challenges presented by the changing nature of our food safety concerns by strengthening and broadening surveillance and response systems at CDC and the state and local health departments. The following areas of national surveillance for foodborne diseases are addressed by the initiative: rapid identification of and effective response to foodborne hazards; identification of large, diffuse outbreaks that have a low attack rate within one health jurisdiction but affect the health of many people within a larger geographic area; and evaluation of the nature and scope of food safety problems. In addition, the National Food Safety Initiative will 1) link CDC, state and local health departments, and other federal agencies within a powerful electronic network developed by CDC for rapid sharing of microbial subtyping information, including the digitalized images of subtyping patterns needed for molecular epidemiology, and 2) will enhance and expand the activities of FoodNet, the interagency foodborne disease component of CDC's emerging infectious disease active surveillance program to improve the quantitative base for foodborne disease. Strengthening and Broadening the Base of Surveillance Under the National Food Safety Initiative, CDC is building epidemiologic and laboratory capacity in state and local health departments so they can quickly and effectively identify foodborne hazards, investigate and control outbreaks, and develop effective programs to prevent additional illnesses from the same source. Routine surveillance and outbreak response, critical to the proper functioning of health departments, have been neglected at the state and local levels because of limited resources and competing priorities. Therefore, CDC …