(NaturalNews) — On April 24, 2017, about one in every six Americans get ill as a result of tainted food. More than 1.2 million people have become ill as a result of the bacterium salmonella. The majority of those cases are not fatal, but 40 thousand people do die each year from food-borne illnesses. The number of deaths has been on the rise since 2004, when there were 4500 salmonella-related deaths reported by the CDC. Since then, that number has kept increasing, with over 6500 deaths reported in 2016. Most of these deaths are due to infections caused by eating contaminated poultry or eggs. However unfair it may be, egg-based products such as cakes and cookies contain less risk than other foods because they are judged to be safe even if they are contaminated with salmonella. People who are elderly or immunocompromised (for example, cancer patients undergoing treatments or people with AIDS) are at high risk for serious complications from salmonella. Those risks increase if the person loses his or her ability to fight off infection (i.e., sepsis). Sepsis is when the body's immune system reacts to an infection and creates many problems throughout the body. Without treatment, sepsis can lead to death.