[Editor's Note: It seems problematic to say that the "U.S. has one of the safest food supplies in the world," while 25 percent of Americans get sick from the food they eat every year! For more information, check out OCA's Food Safety Resource Center.]
When it comes to agriculture, America is indeed the land of plenty. Foods raised here and imported from around the world provide greater abundance and choice than ever before. But while our foods are bountiful, they're also inconsistently regulated.
The U.S. has one of the safest food supplies in the world, but the report card is mixed, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker. Every year 33 percent of Canadians get sick from what they eat. In the U.S., it's 25 percent. But in England it's only 2 percent and in France just 1 percent. In both places food is grown more locally and on a smaller scale than in North America.
For part of the CBS News series "Where America Stands," a recent poll found that just one in three Americans are very confident that the food they buy is safe although the vast majority are at least somewhat confident that their food is safe.
Special Report: "Where America Stands"
Safety always comes first in 12-year-old Rylee Gustafson's kitchen.
"I need to wash my hands I touched my jeans," Gustafson said in her Henderson, Nev., home recently.
She, more than anyone, knows that even good food can hurt you. In 2006, on her 9th birthday, she ate a spinach salad and was infected with a virulent strain of e-coli.
"It felt like killer pain, and my organs started to shut down," Gustafson told Whitaker.
Kathleen Chrismer, Rylee's mother, told Whitaker that she panicked when she didn't know what was hurting her daughter.
"You really didn't think you were going to pull through?" Whitaker asked Gustafson.
"I really felt that bad," she said.
Every Year 25 Percent of Americans, 33 Percent of Canadians Get Sick from What They Eat
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Protection of Food Supply Faces Problems
Every Year, 25 Percent of Americans Become Sick From Food; FDA Fighting to Increase Power Unchanged Since Great Depression
By Bill Whitaker
CBS Evening News, Jan 9, 2009
Straight to the Source
