The Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention (CFI) will host a meeting on Monday, May 14, bringing together national and international foodborne illness experts from government and academia for a daylong discussion on the burden of foodborne illness and its long-term health impacts.
“While most people think that foodborne illness is a bad tummy ache,” said Dr. Barbara Kowalcyk, CFI’s CEO, “foodborne illness causes chronic, long-term effects that can last for the rest of the person’s life. Reactive arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, kidney failure and brain damage are some of the lasting effects of foodborne illness. And, at this point, we have not estimated the cost – or burden – of these long term impacts.”
Policy makers use burden of disease estimates in assessing risk, setting priorities, and allocating resources. “The meeting will look at how to estimate the burden of these long term health impacts, identify data gaps, set research and policy priorities for addressing these data gaps, and propose a framework for moving forward,” Kowalcyk said.
Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods at FDA, will give the keynote Monday morning at 8:45 a.m. Dr. Arie Havelaar, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), The Netherlands, will open the discussion at 9:15 a.m. with his remarks, Quantifying the Public Health Risks in Food Safety: How is it done and Why is it important?
For more information and to register, click here.
The meeting is open to the public. Space is limited. The registration fee is $20 for students and $50 for all other participants.
WHO: Foodborne illness experts from government and academia
WHEN: Monday, May 14, 2012
8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
WHERE: Sheraton Imperial Hotel, Durham, NC