Government report US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

About Food Safety

Cited in 4 Likelier entries (4 risks, 0 decisions).

Used in 4 entries

For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.

[1] Food left out Risk

Statistic

CDC estimates 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths per year from foodborne illness in the US

“"CDC estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die."”
Calculation notes
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The CDC headline total provides the denominator for the normalized figure. 48 million illnesses / 330 million US residents ≈ 14.5% of Americans per year experience a foodborne illness from any cause. Multiplied by the ~20% share attributable to temperature abuse (NORS) gives the ~2.9% per year figure compounded in the normalization.
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Independence note: Restates Scallan et al. 2011; not independent of the MMWR contributing- factors analysis, which also uses CDC surveillance data.

Source date: 2024-01-01 · Accessed: 2026-04-16
[2] Food poisoning (US) Risk

Statistic

CDC estimates 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths per year from foodborne illness in the US

“"CDC estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die."”
Calculation notes
```
CDC's public-facing page restates the Scallan 2011 totals as round numbers. This is the canonical figure cited in policy and press. Used here to confirm that the ~3,000/year estimate remains the current CDC headline fifteen years after publication, not as an independent estimate.
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Independence note: Derived directly from Scallan 2011 — treat as confirmation of continuing use, not as an independent data point.

Source date: 2024-01-01 · Accessed: 2026-04-11

[3] Dirty fridge Risk

Statistic: CDC estimates 48 million US foodborne illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths per year

“"CDC estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die."”

Calculation notes

Frames the absolute burden of foodborne illness in the US: roughly one in seven Americans has a foodborne illness episode in a given year. This is the headline number the contamination-anxiety articles implicitly invoke. What it cannot do is attribute any fraction of that burden to refrigerator cleaning frequency. CDC's attribution work apportions illness across food categories (poultry, produce, dairy, deli) and pathogens (Salmonella, Norovirus, Campylobacter, Listeria); the "in-home refrigerator cleaning cadence" exposure is not a category the surveillance system tracks because the data needed to estimate it does not exist. Anchors the absolute scale of foodborne illness while making clear why no slice of it can be cleanly assigned to the question this entry asks.

Independence note: Federal surveillance estimate, independent of all three peer-reviewed bioburden studies; provides denominator and population context rather than mechanism.

Source date: 2024-08-13 · Accessed: 2026-05-31

[4] Undercooked food Risk

Statistic

CDC estimates 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths per year from foodborne illness in the US

“"CDC estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die."”
Calculation notes
```
Provides the denominator for the normalized figure. 48 million illnesses / 330 million US residents = ~14.5% of Americans per year experience a foodborne illness from any cause. Multiplied by the ~12% share attributable to undercooking (NORS) gives the ~1.75% per year figure compounded in the normalization.
```
Independence note: Restates Scallan et al. 2011; not independent of the NORS contributing-factors analysis.

Source date: 2024-01-01 · Accessed: 2026-04-19