Food poisonings remain stubbornly high

The number of people stricken by food poisoning remains stubbornly high across the United States, despite improvements in the speed and accuracy of tests to detect the sources.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued its annual report that says during 2016, it identified 24,029 cases of food poisoning, 5,512 hospitalizations, and 98 deaths.

The largest number of confirmed cases were caused by Campylobacter (8,547), followed by Salmonella (8,172), Shigella (2,913), STEC (1,845), Cryptosporidium (1,816), Yersinia (302), Vibrio (252), Listeria (127), and Cyclospora (55). 

But 20 years ago, before DNA testing, we usually did not know the source of food poisonings.