Foodborne illness poses a $77.7 billion economic burden in the United States annually, according to a new study published in the Journal of Food Protection.
The new estimate is significantly lower than the oft-cited $152 billion figure, which was calculated by Robert Scharff, a consumer science professor at Ohio State University, in 2010. The new study, also by Scharff, reflects the most up-to-date estimates on foodborne illness by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to estimate total annual health-related costs.
