SHNS Study Says Many Food Illnesses Undiagnosed

By: E&P Staff Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) has done a study that finds many Americans falling ill or dying from food-related causes that go undiagnosed by the nation's public-health departments.

The study -- covering the five-year period from Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2004 -- discovered that state health departments failed to find the cause in more than 50,000 cases of Americans getting sick or dying from something they ate. The cause of nearly two-thirds of 6,374 food-related disease outbreaks (defined as two or more people believed to be sickened by the same food) was officially listed as "unknown."

SHNS said Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Nebraska were among the worst offenders. (After learning of the study's findings, Kentucky officials ordered changes to their disease-reporting system.) Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Hawaii do a good job of diagnosing disease outbreaks, according to the news service study.

The United Media-marketed SHNS offers 80-100 stories a day to more than 400 newspapers and Web sites.