For years, conservative estimates of losses from food borne illnesses in the US have placed the figure as low as $6.9 billion, and as high as $35 billion every year. As a new report into food safety in the country shows, those figures are barely the tip of the iceberg. The report by the Produce Safety Project says that the actual cost of food borne illnesses annually amounts to a staggering $157 billion every year.
Injury lawyers in Atlanta have a close connection with the food safety issue. After all, it was the appalling hygiene and safety conditions at a peanut processing plant in our own Georgia that caused nuts to be contaminated with the Salmonella bacteria, and led to a nationwide epidemic that killed several people, and injured hundreds of Americans. The peanut butter salmonella epidemic was just one among several that have come out since then, and which continue to crop up at nauseating intervals.
Every year, according to research conducted by the Produce Safety Project, more than 76 million Americans suffer from a food borne illness. The researchers calculated the costs of these illnesses by adding not just the medical and hospital costs that the patient incurred, but also the lost quality of life as a result of the illness.They arrived at the total figure of $157 billion every year from these illnesses.