Foodborne illness on rapid increase
Executive Intelligence Review, Aug. 29, 1998, pp. 20-21

The world's population is suffering from an explosive increase in foodborne illnesses, according to the World Health Organization. A recent WHO report warns that hundreds of millions of people suffer from foodborne diseases each year after eating food contaminated by salmonella, E. coli bacteria, and cholera, and millions of them die.

The report confirms warnings made by Lyndon LaRouche in the 1970's, of the biological holocaust that would result from the collapse of public health infrastructure. EIR has warned that a dramatic increase in the death toll would occur due to foodborne illnesses, resulting from the worldwide collapse of food refrigeration, a result of the ban on chlorofluorocarbons. The WHO report also underscores the urgent need for widespread use of food irradiation technology.

Worldwide, of the 1.5 billion children under five who suffer diarrhea each year, more than 3 million who die as a result, most cases had thought to be due to waterborne diseases. But Fritz Kaeferstein, director of WHO's program of food safety, states that a "significant proportion of the diarrheal disease cases are foodborne in origin."

Foodborne diseases are vastly underreported, especially by developing countries, particularly by authorities who fear that publicizing an outbreak will damage tourism and trade. :It is estimated that the reported incidence of foodborne diseases from the reported incidence of foodborne diseases represents less than 10% or, maybe even less than 1% of the real incidence.," the report says. "Surveys in a few countries indicate that food-borne diseases may be 300-350 times more frequent than the reported cases tend to indicate."

Even industrialized nations are suffering from deadly outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Two U.S. Department of Agriculture experts, Jean Buzby and Tanya Roberts, write that just seven foodborne pathogens cause 3.3 millions causes 3.3 million to 12.3 million cases and 3,000 to 9,000 deaths each year.