Alright, class, time for another lesson in food safety and the federal government. We all know that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is responsible for ensuring the safety of our meat, poultry and eggs, and that other sections within the USDA are also hard at work protecting some other food sources. And we also know that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) checks on our food too: veggies, dairy, seafood and processed products. But here’s a question to test your food safety knowledge: do you know how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fits into this equation?

The CDC is a public health agency that works to equip humans with the necessary tools to protect their health. They investigate all types of diseases and work on many different types of disease prevention and control, including foodborne diseases, like salmonella, and diseases that aren’t transmitted through our food, like influenza. While the CDC doesn’t regulate our food supply, it does work closely with the USDA and the FDA to interpret data collected from state and local public health authorities and it investigates foodborne related outbreaks.

Like the name implies, foodborne diseases are transmitted through the consumption of contaminated food. Stomach Flu or noroviruses, for example, are spread person to person. In fact, humans are the sole reservoir for noroviruses, and noroviruses cause the vast majority of foodborne illnesses.

Additionally, hygiene and food preparation play an important role in spreading disease. People play an unintended yet significant role in the transmission of foodborne diseases through poor hygiene, such as not washing their hands properly. Improper food storage and preparation, such as not cooking meat at a high enough temperature, also contribute to foodborne illness.

Back to the CDC… The CDC’s Emerging Infections Program (EIP) developed the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) in 1995 as an important component of its foodborne disease initiative. FoodNet collaborates with the USDA, FDA and ten EIP sites across the United States to provide information that helps public officials better understand and respond to foodborne illness outbreaks.

Generally, as the result of a physician requesting lab tests on a patient, the discovery of a foodborne disease is reported by the laboratory to the state health department. After extensive investigation by the local authorities, suspected outbreaks are reported to the CDC. Because an intricate chain of events needs to occur before the CDC is notified, and because most people don’t visit a doctor for these types of mild illnesses, very few are actually reported to the CDC.

FoodNet, on the other hand, provides a quicker way for foodborne outbreaks to be detected. Reports of outbreaks are continuously being checked by public officials, instead of waiting for labs to report incidents and outbreaks. Public officials frequently contact the laboratories to inquire about new cases of foodborne illness and report them to the CDC, so they can closely monitor these events and provide more accurate estimates of the extent and effect of these outbreaks.