CDC Criticized For Outbreak Reporting Policy
Government health agencies have come under fire in recent days for the manner in which they conducted a recent foodborne illness investigation.
The CDC, in the final report of the outbreak, was criticized for referring only to a “Chain A” when describing a company that likely had been supplied with contaminated product, likely produce. The outbreak, and any possible attendant risk to public health, had ended by the time the report was published. The CDC determined that the contamination likely occurred before the product ever reached the restaurants.
Investigative efforts were unable to identify a specific food associated with illness, but data indicate that contamination likely occurred before the product reached Restaurant Chain A locations.
This outbreak now appears to be over.
Despite the reported unlikelihood of any possible additional risk, many are accusing the CDC of jeopardizing the public health by not identifying “Chain A.”
A Seattle-based plaintiffs’ food safety attorney has been leading the charge against the unnamed company, the FDA and the CDC. His complaints stem from CDC’s decision not to disclose the identity of the restaurant chain. It is his contention that “the public has a right to know and to use the information as it sees fit, and people – especially government employees – have no right to decide what we should and should not know.”
CDC’s policy, according to Robert Tauxe, is to disclose the identity of an outbreak source “only when people can use that information to take specific action to protect their health." While some decry the policy, it is in place to promote cooperation between governmental health agencies and companies that may be associated with illnesses.
On the one hand, cooperation between agencies and business during the course of an outbreak is critical. The most important thing, I think we can all agree, is to protect public health in the event of an ongoing outbreak. In the event that public health is at risk, CDC and FDA release the names of companies and the potentially implicated products.
Without cooperation, however, CDC investigators worry that it will take longer to identify the source of outbreaks, potentially resulting in unnecessary illnesses. Thus, if an outbreak is over, current policy is not to name the offending company. Often, as in this case, it is a supplier who provided the contaminated product and not the restaurant itself.
In the end, CDC is not interested in blaming or punishing. Their job is to protect the public from health hazards and they feel they can better accomplish that by not revealing the names of companies who received contaminated products.
Others, however, take the position that it is a consumer’s right to know if a restaurant is associated with an outbreak, even after it is over. They argue that, when it comes to public health, it is not for the government to decide what information people should and should not have access to.
In the case of the outbreak at issue, the investigation revealed:
Collaborative investigative efforts of state, local, and federal public health agencies indicated that eating food from a Mexican-style fast food restaurant chain, Restaurant Chain A, was associated with some illnesses.
CDC and FDA do the best they can with the resources they have. Their investigation showed a statistical association between the outbreak and the restaurant chain. The restaurant chain, in turn, did all it could to assist the CDC in determining the root source. This cooperation is reflected in the CDC report:
Restaurant Chain A, as well as their food suppliers and distributors, were very cooperative in providing extensive information to public health officials as various leads were explored.
Unfortunately, notwithstanding its best efforts, the CDC was unable to trace the illnesses back to a single product. Tracing microscopic bacteria to a single source can in some cases be very challenging. But to accuse the CDC of colluding to make people sick because it didn’t reveal the name of a company that may itself have been a victim of the outbreak is inappropriate.
Both the restaurant chain and the agencies involved in investigating the outbreak deserve to be praised for their cooperation in trying to determine the source of this outbreak. The chain at issue did not contaminate the food, it arrived that way. As such, there is absolutely no reason to openly criticize the company, especially in light of its own efforts to help CDC and FDA prevent further illness.
Here is a link to the CDC report: I think it is actually rather impressive.
http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/restaurant-enteriditis/011912/index.html
