I may never eat out again. Like Blackman, increasing numbers of Americans are, the story says, growing wary of everything from hamburgers to home fries, enchiladas to ice cream. Some polls show that consumers are more worried about tainted meat than violent crime. These figures help form the foundation of a Clinton administration initiative to toughen national food laws. But, the story adds, the preliminary data from a new program at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta suggest that those estimates are overstated, or, as the food industry says, wildly exaggerated.
Nobody has the vaguest idea, so people make up numbers depending on what their agenda is.
To rely on these numbers is just dead wrong. Final CDC estimates are expected by the end of the year, and food producers and the restaurant industry plan to use them to deflect proposals for tougher inspections of their facilities. Fred Angulo, head of the CDC FoodNet program that tracks food-borne illness, was cited as saying the agency's estimate of deaths probably would fall between 1,000 and the old estimate of 9,000. By comparison, skin cancer claims about 9,200 victims a year. Angulo was cited as saying that new estimates would show 1.4 million cases and 500 deaths.