Food-Related Illness Reflection

Unknown to me before reading this article there is over 200 known diseases transmitted through food or water. Causing any ware from six million to eighty-one million illnesses and over nine thousand deaths. And these are just the reported cases, double the figures given above and the numbers well be much closer to reality. This is an epidemic in our society that needs to be monitored closely or it will quickly get out of hand.

This article was interesting to me because I never knew that so many bacteria's, parasites, and toxins are so easily transmitted through food and water. This could be a big issue for me in the area of my major Sports Management. If I were in charge of a public facility, like arena or sports facility one outbreak of food related illness could be catastrophic on a huge scale. Thousands of people eating and drinking contaminated items would not only cripple the market but put many or lives at risk. That is why it is important to have these groups that analysis Food borne Disease like the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System; they are part of Food Net established in 1996 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Center for Disease and Control. I don't ever believe that there was an incident with food borne disease in an arena setting, but I do know of some cases filed at fast food places like jack in the box and most recently on Disney cruse ships. The Outbreaks on the cruse ship involved about 1,000 passengers and crew members on two Florida-based cruise ships. More than 450 people got sick during two recent trips of the Disney Magic, and more than 500 people fell ill during other voyages, Experts believe that it was from people not washing their hands properly and then preparing food.

This was a very informing article on a subject that I never really thought of too deeply. I never knew that food and water borne diseases could be such a problem, infecting and killing so many people. This really opened my eyes to a whole new level of responsibility and liability for my career field. One mistake and millions of dollars and hundreds of lives may be lost because of bad potato salad.