Bill Marler's presentation at the Association of Healthcare Journalists' 2012 Health Journalism conference. Marler shares information about foodborne illness outbreak litigation with journalists who write about healthcare and the food industry.

1. Why is Food Still
Making Us Sick –
“Killing Us” - in the
21st Century?

2. Food Production is a Risky Business
• Competitive Markets
• Stockholder Pressures
for Increasing Profits
over Long-term Safety
• Lack of Clear Reward
For Marketing and
Practicing Food Safety
• Brand Awareness Risks

3. Sometimes People are Just Bad

4. It is a Global Food Economy

5. What we all want to Avoid

6. Litigation as Incentive
Odwalla
Jack in the
Box

10. New England Journal of Medicine
March 24, 1983
We investigated two outbreaks of an unusual
gastrointestinal illness that affected at least 47 people in
Oregon and Michigan in February through March and May
through March and May
Through June 1982. The illness was characterized by severe
through
crampy abdominal pain, initially watery diarrhea followed
by grossly bloody diarrhea, and little or no fever.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM198303243081203

11. New England Journal of Medicine
March 24, 1983
In Oregon, 25 of 26 cases and 47
neighborhood controls were interviewed.
During the two weeks before onset of
illness, 21 of 25 cases (84 per cent) but
only 13 controls (28 per cent) had eaten
at Restaurant 1, one of a chain of fast-
food restaurants (Chain A) … three of the
four who did not recall having eaten at
Restaurant 1 had eaten at another Chain
A restaurant within a week before the
onset of illness.
In Michigan, 18 of 21 cases and their age-
matched neighborhood controls were
interviewed … Seventeen of 18 cases and
4 of 16 controls had eaten at either
Restaurant 2 or Restaurant 3 of Chain A
within 10 days before the onset of illness
…

14. Something for Summer Reading
"A stunningly researched
work, "Poisoned" reads as
though Clarence Darrow
had written "The Jungle.”
"Just in time for BBQ
season, an investigative
journalist traces the path of
a devastating outbreak of
food-borne illness linked to
hamburger meat.”