With summer here, food spoilage becomes more common, and to educate Americans about the dangers of improper food handling, the government is launching a multimedia, multiagency campaign.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food, and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Ad Council, and JWT New York, a marketing company, are teaming up to teach food poisoning prevention procedures. JWT created humorous public service announcements and donated them.
Secretary of the USDA Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced the campaign on June 28 in Washington.
It was launched just in time for Fourth of July celebrations. Summer is always the season for foodborne illnesses to increase with more outdoor meals, and other factors that increase the risk for disease-causing bacteria in food.
The theme of this campaign is: clean, separate, cook, chill. It will be presented with humorous metaphors to attract people’s attention.
According to the CDC, approximately one in six Americans (48 million people) suffer from food poisoning annually, resulting in roughly 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. If foodborne illnesses were reduced by just 10 percent it could save 5 million people from getting sick each year.
According to Christopher R. Braden, M.D., director, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, the CDC has worked hard to systematically prevent food poisoning through efforts such as “Public Surveillance, and Outbreaks Detection and Response,” which has a sophisticated DNA fingerprinting system to match bacteria to its common food source. In a telephone interview, he said E. coli outbreaks have decreased by 50 percent within the past 15 years due to the efforts of all the different health agencies.
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) also conducted 8 million food safety and food defense procedures to verify that all federal establishments have met the requirements of food safety.
The concern now is if Americans can keep the food clean after purchase. “Consumers also play a role in preventing food safety problems by properly handling, preparing, and storing food in the home. This campaign will help consumers understand their role in farm-to-table food safety,” Sebelius said in a statement.
Television, radio, print, Web advertising, and an integrated social media program will be provided not only in English, but also in Spanish so that it can reach more people.
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