The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is offering two new resources for sharing information once a foodborne illness outbreak investigation has concluded: Executive Incident Summary (EIS) Abstracts for Closed Foodborne Illness Investigations and Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data (FOOD) Reports.
The agency said the new resources aim to improve public access to information about foodborne illness outbreaks and contribute to the knowledge base that industry and federal, state and local governments can use to prevent future outbreaks from happening.
EIS Abstracts for Closed Foodborne Illness Investigations.
FDA said it will release EIS abstracts following the close of every completed FDA foodborne outbreak investigation. These abstracts will allow stakeholders to better understand the outcomes of each investigation, said the agency.
The abstracts reflect an effort to complement the FDA’s existing tools and are intended to share as much information as possible about foodborne illness investigations as soon as FDA can, the agency said. They will also highlight the work of federal, state, local, tribal and territorial partners to protect the public from foodborne illness outbreaks.
EIS abstracts are written after the closure of each outbreak or adverse event investigation linked to an FDA-regulated human food product when the response phase has ended and there is no longer an ongoing risk to the public, said FDA. These investigations are primarily managed by FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response & Evaluation (CORE) Network, with additional coordination with FDA field offices, FDA subject matter experts, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and state and local partners.
EIS abstracts are a post-response deliverable and often include a high-level overview of the traceback, laboratory and epidemiological information collected during the investigation, said FDA. These abstracts are redacted in a way that complies with disclosure laws, including the Trade Secrets Act, and FDA regulations to protect confidential commercial information, personally identifiable information and other information exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. These abstracts can be accessed on the CORE Investigations Table, which includes all outbreaks managed by a CORE Response Team, or on the new EIS landing page.
Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data (FOOD) Reports.
FOOD reports constitute a more robust, data-driven, retrospective review of repeated events and will be released when there is enough data to support their development, said FDA.
FOOD Reports provide information for industry and consumers on pathogen-commodity pairs that have been linked to repeated outbreaks of foodborne illness, said the agency. The reports include highlights of historical epidemiological data, laboratory analyses, traceback and investigational findings and post-response prevention activities taken by the FDA, industry, academic and other federal, state, local, tribal and territorial stakeholders.
These reports were developed to provide information that may be useful in preventing future foodborne illnesses and that may be used in food safety communication, training and identification of research needs, said FDA. Each FOOD report summarizes data and findings from select outbreak investigations related to a specific pathogen-commodity pair linked to foodborne illness outbreaks.
The first FOOD Reports, released Sept. 24, provide summaries of hepatitis A outbreaks linked to berries and Salmonella outbreaks linked to tahini.