GPs fail to report food poisoning

A parliamentary committee has accused family doctors of neglecting their legal responsibilities to notify cases of food poisoning. This hampers efforts to understand the extent of the problem to be tackled by the planned Food Standards Agency.

The House of Commons agriculture committee reports that 1997 was the first year in which the number of food poisoning notifications in the United Kingdom exceeded 100000 (with between 100 and 200 deaths). There has been a worrying increase in outbreaks associated with strains of Salmonella typhimurium DT104 showing resistance to antibiotics, along with two other pathogens, Campylobacter spp, and Escherichia coli O157.

Moreover, …