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Abstract
Salmonellosis, a common human intestinal disorder primarily caused by
contaminated meats and poultry, attacks an estimated two million Americans
annually. Using a cost of illness approach, the medical costs and productivity
losses alone were estimated to cost around one billion dollars in 1987. If
pain and suffering, lost leisure time, and chronic disease costs could be
quantified, the estimate would increase significantly. Other procedures for
calculating the value of life could either raise or lower the estimated economic
benefits of reducing human salmonellosis.
Incorporating losses to farmers, whose animals have reduced feed efficiency,
reduced weight gain, or deaths because of chronic salmonellosis, would also
increase the estimates. Also excluded were costs of food safety regulatory
programs and costs to the industry for product recalls and plant closures due
to foodborne salmonellosis outbreaks.
The National Academy of Sciences has endorsed risk assessment as a necessary
method to evaluate and improve food safety regulatory programs, especially as
applied to Salmonella contamination of poultry. Understanding the costs of
salmonellosis is an important part of risk characterization since a key benefit
of regulatory programs is reducing human salmonellosis.