【Food Safety News】专题研究：美国食品安全历史

　
                                Part 1: History of Food Safety in the U.S.

     BY MICHELLE JARVIE | OCTOBER 6, 2014

    (This article by Michelle Jarvie of Michigan State University Extension was originally posted hereon Sept. 30, 2014, and is reposted with permission. Parts 2 and 3 in her series will be appear later this month.)

    One question I am commonly asked when talking about food safety is why we hear more about foodborne illness outbreaks, and food safety issues in general, more today than we have in the past. To fully answer that question, let’s take a look back in time to discover the history of food safety in the U.S. There are three main parts to examine: The history of foodborne illness itself, U.S. legislation surrounding the safety of our food supply, and the scientific and social aspects of these illnesses.

    Let’s start with looking at the history of foodborne illness. As you can imagine, people have been getting sick from eating food for as long as we’ve been eating food. The first suggested case of a known foodborne illness was proposed by doctors from the University of Maryland who think that Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from a case of typhoid fever when he and his army stopped to rest in ancient Babylon. Typhoid fever is caused by the bacteria Salmonella Typhi, which can be contracted from contaminated food or water. Although this theory can never be fully proven, it goes to show that humans have probably been affected by these illnesses through all of history. Other well-known people throughout history are also suspected to have died from foodborne illnesses, including King Henry I, Rudyard Kipling, President Zachary Taylor and Prince Albert.

    In the U.S., foodborne pathogens have played roles in settling territory and fighting wars. Many historians believe that the first English settlement in Jamestown, VA, was decimated by typhoid fever many times between 1607 and 1699, ultimately leading to its demise. Also in the late 1600s, a toxic fungus changed the course of history and led to the Salem witch trials. The fungus, which was growing on the rye they used for food, caused many symptoms that settlers were unfamiliar with, which led to the accusation of witchcraft and killing of those infected. In 1898, typhoid fever struck again during the Spanish-American war, sickening more than 20,000 American soldiers.

    In more modern history, some of the biggest outbreaks occurred starting in the early 1900s with streptococcus in raw milk, botulism in canned olives and Salmonella Typhi in oysters. Those outbreaks ultimately caused a few hundred deaths. Similar outbreaks continued to occur during the first half of the 20th century in America.

    The latter half of the century and into the 2000s have seen a major spike in the number of outbreaks across the country. Salmonellosis was the culprit of one such major outbreak in 1985. It was responsible for the largest number of food-related deaths since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started recording data. That year also saw roughly 200,000 people sickened from contaminated milk. Possibly the most infamous outbreak, known as the Jack in the Box incident, happened in 1993, and four children died from E. coli-contaminated hamburgers. Major outbreaks in the 2000s include the 2006 E. coli outbreak from contaminated spinach, which caused five deaths, a Salmonella outbreak in peanut butter, which caused nine deaths and sickened 714 people in 46 states in 2008-09, and the 2011 Listeria outbreak on cantaloupes that caused 33 deaths and one miscarriage.

    Nearly every day now you can read news about another foodborne illness outbreak or food recall somewhere in the U.S. Already in 2014, there have been eight major multi-state investigations done by the CDC and countless other reports of localized illness. Every year CDC estimates that about one in six people will contract a foodborne illness. Most likely we will all have had at least one in our lifetimes, most likely more.

    Throughout history, there has been a multitude of sicknesses deriving from food. To prevent foodborne illness now and in the future, Michigan State University Extension recommends proper hand-washing when preparing/serving food or eating, as well as storing food at proper temperatures. Stay tuned for more history of food safety in the U.S. in future articles.

                                 Part 2: History of Food Safety in the U.S.

    Welcome to the second installment of the history of food safety in the U.S. This time we’ll take a look at food policy and legislation over time. As discussed in Part1, the collection of foodborne illness data is relatively new. “The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair and published in February 1906, was a fictional novel that portrayed the lives of immigrants in industrialized cities of that time, but the book inadvertently raised public concern about the health, safety and sanitation practices of the Chicago meatpacking industry. Although the book was published as fiction, Sinclair spent nearly nine months in 1904, undercover, as an employee in a Chicago meatpacking plant.

    Upon reading the book, President Theodore Roosevelt called on Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which were both passed in June 1906. They were the first U.S. laws that addressed the safety of the public food supply. Both of these laws defined “misbranding” and “adulteration” in food, which primarily means they were concerned with truth in labeling and food additives. In those days, many food preservatives (such as formaldehyde and borax) were added to products to disguise unsanitary production processes.

    One of the first major court battles involving the Pure Food and Drug Act was an attempt to outlaw Coca-Cola due to its excessively high caffeine content. This law was the precursor to the formation of what is now called the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Meat Inspection Act led to the formation of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service. Recorded U.S. deaths from food-related illness significantly dropped during the first decade after these laws were enacted.

    Between 1906 and 1938, many more similar acts were created that monitored food additives such as colors and chemical additions, as well as labeling and marketing of foods. The winter of 1924-25 brought what is possibly the worst foodborne illness outbreak known to date. The outbreak was typhoid fever that had been spread through improperly handled oysters and was the first outbreak to gain nationwide attention. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 1969 that FDA began sanitation programs specifically for shellfish, as well as milk and the food-service industry as a whole.

    In 1970, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) began keeping records on foodborne illness-related deaths in the U.S. This is really the starting point for data on modern foodborne illness outbreaks. A nationwide illness outbreak from canned mushrooms in 1973 led to the first major food recall in the U.S., causing the removal of more than 75 million cans of mushrooms from store shelves. Due to this outbreak, the National Botulism Surveillance System was developed to collect reports and data from all confirmed botulism cases in the U.S. In the same year, processing regulations for low-acid foods were set forth to ensure proper heat-treating of canned foods.

    In 1997, a few years after the Jack in the Box incident, the Clinton administration put $43 million into a food-safety initiative that created many of the regulations we see and hear about today. This initiative brought regulations on seafood, meat and poultry processing, and shell eggs. It also created a program for DNA fingerprinting that would help track outbreaks and determine sources of outbreaks. Finally, the initiative called for a cooperative detection and response effort between CDC, FDA, USDA and local agencies called FoodNet.

    Today, we have the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which was signed into law in 2011 and is considered the most significant food-safety legislation in more than 70 years. The major difference between this act and those of the past is that the focus has switched from responding, to contamination, to prevention. The law gives FDA authority to regulate the way foods are grown, harvested and processed. Although the act is still in its infancy, many are hoping to see fewer illness outbreaks in the future due to tighter regulations.

    Stay tuned for Part 3 in this series where we’ll try to finally answer the question: Why do we hear more about food safety issues today compared to the past?

（网站来源：http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/10/history-of-food-safety-in-the-u-s-part-1/#.VEdMzEaUjf-；http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/10/part-2-history-of-food-safety-in-the-u-s/#.VEdMUkaUjf9。）

译文：

第一期

我在谈论食品安全问题时，经常有人问我为什么食源性疾病越来越多，食品安全事故比过去更为频繁。为了完整地回答此问题，我们要回望过去，来看看美国食品安全的历史。主要有三部分要研究：食源性疾病本身的历史，美国的食品安全立法，以及从科学和社会的角度看待食源性疾病。

先从食源性疾病的历史讲起。可想而知，人们从开始食用食物起，就开始因此而染上疾病。马里兰大学的医生认为第一起食源性疾病的案例即亚历山大大帝在公元前323年与军队驻扎于古巴比伦时死于伤寒。伤寒由伤寒沙门菌引起，可通过被污染的食物或水源感染。尽管这一理论尚未完全得到证实，但却表明人类在整个历史进程中都可能受到了这类疾病的影响。其他的一些历史名人也被怀疑是死于食源性疾病，包括亨利一世，拉迪亚德·吉卜林，扎卡里·泰勒总统和艾伯特王子。

在美国，食源性病原体在恐怖活动和战争中也发挥了作用。许多历史学家认为英国人在弗吉尼亚州詹姆斯敦建立第一个殖民地后，由于在1607至1699年之间爆发了多次伤寒，而导致了最终的消亡。在17世纪末期，一种有毒真菌的发现改变了历史进程并且导致了萨勒姆女巫审判案。这种真菌生长在食用的黑麦中，这引起了许多殖民者们并不熟知的症状，于是他们将其归因于巫术，并杀死了那些被感染的人。1898年，在西美战争期间，伤寒卷土重来，2万名美国士兵被感染。

后来，自20世纪初的生鲜牛奶中的链球菌，到罐装橄榄肉毒杆菌中毒以及牡蛎中的伤寒沙门菌等许多次疾病大爆发，并且导致了上百人的死亡。在20世纪前半叶的美国，类似的疾病不断爆发。

20世纪后半叶以及至21世纪，全国的疾病爆发在数量上大幅下降。沙门氏菌是1985年食源性疾病大爆发的罪魁祸首。此为疾病防控中心开始数据记录以来最大规模的食源性疾病。那一年，约20万人因被污染的牛奶受到感染。最臭名昭著的可能要数1993年盒子里的杰克（美国快餐店）事件。四个孩子死于食用了被大肠杆菌污染的汉堡。21世纪的几次大爆发包括2006年菠菜中的大肠杆菌，导致5人死亡；2008至2009年，花生酱中的沙门氏菌，导致46个州共9人死亡，714感染；2011年香瓜中的李氏杆菌，导致33人死亡，1人流产。

如今，几乎每天都可以看到美国的某个地方发生食源性疾病或食物召回的新闻。直至2014年，疾病防控中心已进行了8起大型的跨州调查，也有无数关于地方性疾病的报道。疾病防控中心估计每年有1/6的人会感染食源性疾病。很可能我们每个人一生中至少有一次会感染食源性疾病，甚至更多次。

纵观历史，有大量由食物引起的疾病。为了防止食源性疾病，密歇根州立大学推广中心推荐了在准备食物或食用食物时合适的洗手液，并建议将食物储存在合适的温度下。

敬请期待更多关于美国食品安全历史的文章。

第二期

欢迎阅读美国食品安全历史的第二期。

这回，我们来看看食品政策与立法的历史。正如第一期中谈到的，食源性疾病数据的收集相对较新。厄普顿·辛克莱的《屠场》出版于1906年2月，是一本刻画当时工业化城市的移民们的生活的小说。但此书不经意地引起了公众对芝加哥肉类包装业的标准，安全以及卫生的关注。尽管该书是一本小说，但辛克莱曾在1904年花了近9个月的时间秘密地在芝加哥肉类包装厂做雇工。

读了这本书之后，西奥多·罗斯福总统召集了国会，于1906年6月通过了《纯净食品和药品法》和《肉类制品监督法》。这是美国最早的有关食品供给安全的法律。两部法律都解释了食品“错误标签”和“参假”，主要与标签的真假和食品添加剂有关。当时，产品中加了许多食品防腐剂（如甲醛和硼砂）以掩盖不卫生的生产加工。

最早的与《纯净食品和药品法》有关的一个大官司是可口可乐的案子，因为可口可乐的咖啡因含量过高。这部法律还促成了美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的建立。《肉类制品监督法》促成了美国农业部食品安全检验局的建立。在这两部法律颁布后的最初的十年间，有记载的食源

在1906年至1938年间，更多类似的法案颁布以监管食品添加剂（如色素和化学添加剂）以及食品的标签和销售。1924至1925年的冬天发生了可能是到目前为止最严重的一次食源性疾病。这次疾病爆发是由处理不当的牡蛎引发的伤寒，引起了全国的关注。不幸的是，直到1969年，FDA才开始实施专门针对贝类动物，乳制品以及食品服务业整体的公共卫生项目。

1970年，疾病控制中心开始记录美国食源性疾病死亡数据。这是真正意义上的现代食源性疾病数据资料的开端。1973年，罐装蘑菇引起了一场全国性的疾病爆发，有了美国历史上第一次大规模的食物召回。7500多万罐装蘑菇下架。由于此次爆发，建立了全国肉毒杆菌检测系统，收集美国所有的肉毒杆菌病案的报告和数据。同年，出台了低酸食品的加工条例，确保罐装食品适当的热处理。

1977年，盒子里的杰克（美国快餐店）事件的几年后，克林顿政府在食品安全立法提案上投入4300万美元，创制了许多我们今日所见所闻的法案。这些立法提案提出了海鲜,肉类,家禽的加工及蛋类的规章制度，还创立了DNA指纹项目以助跟踪疫情并确定疫情来源。最后，立法提案呼吁疾病控制中心CDC,美国食品药品监督管理局FDA,美国农业部USDA以及地方当局食物网FoodNet的合作检测与响应。

今日，我们有了《食品安全现代化法案》，于2011年立法通过。该法案是70多年来意义最为重大的法案。这部法律与之前的法案最大的区别在于关注的重心从污染治理转移到预防。这部法律赋予FDA规范食物种植，收割及加工的权利。尽管该法案尚未成熟，许多人仍希望更严格的法律法规能够减少疾病的发生。

敬请期待本系列第三部分。在第三部分中我们将给出最终的答案：为什么今天我们听到的食品安全问题比过去更多？

（编译：蒋一伟）