Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
22
The Economics of Food Safety: The 2006
Foodborne Illness Outbreak Linked to
Spinach
Linda Calvin, Helen H. Jensen, and Jing Liang
Introduction
On September 14, 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that
consumers should not eat bagged spinach because of a foodborne illness outbreak of
the potentially deadly bacterium
Escherichia coli
O157 : H7. Retail and food - service
fi rms immediately cleared bagged spinach from their shelves and menus. Spinach sales
closed down overnight. By the time the outbreak was over, 204 people became ill
across 26 states and 1 province in Canada, 104 people were hospitalized, 31 developed
the serious complication of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), and 3 died. Eventually,
the FDA determined that one 2.8-acre fi eld was the most likely source of all the con-
taminated spinach, but it could not identify the method of contamination. In the wake
of the outbreak, the spinach—and more generally leafy greens—industry, retailers, and
food-service buyers, and the government reassessed their strategies to reduce the risk
of microbial contamination (Calvin 2007). The widespread impact of a small quantity
of contaminated spinach emphasizes the fact that there can be signifi cant public health
effects and economic spillovers from the actions of an individual grower.
Although spinach and other leafy greens have been associated with numerous
foodborne illness outbreaks, the risk of becoming ill from spinach is low. In 2005,
U.S. consumers ate 680 million pounds of fresh spinach and the load of contaminated
spinach associated with the outbreak totaled only 1,002 pounds. However, leafy greens
are the most likely produce category to be associated with an outbreak. From 1996 to
2006, leafy greens have accounted for 34% of all outbreaks due to microbial contami-
nation traced back to a specifi c fruit or vegetable, 10% of illnesses, and 33% of deaths
(Table 22.1). Of the 24 outbreaks traced to leafy greens in the United States since
1996, 20 have been associated with
E. coli
O157 : H7 contamination (Fig. 22.1 ). Three
other outbreaks were related to
Cyclospora
and one to
Salmonella
. None of the previ-
ous foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy greens had the number of illnesses and
deaths, negative publicity, market impact, or industry response of the 2006 outbreak
associated with spinach. Over this period, only two outbreaks were associated with
spinach, but they accounted for all fi ve deaths associated with leafy greens.
Although the spinach outbreak received a great amount of publicity, it was not the
largest outbreak linked to produce in terms of illnesses. The 1996 outbreak associated
with
Cyclospora
contamination of Guatemalan raspberries sickened 1,465 people in
the U.S. and Canada, but no one died. Nor was the outbreak linked to spinach the
most deadly. Although it is sometimes diffi cult to attribute death to a particular cause,
the 2003 outbreak associated with green onions from Mexico contaminated with the
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