In recent years, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have advanced new tools that make it easier and faster to identify outbreaks of human illness and to link them back to the food source that is the culprit responsible for the illnesses. The answer to that question is that we don’t believe we are seeing more outbreaks. Over the past few weeks, the FDA, the CDC, and our partners have worked to identify, investigate, address and communicate about several foodborne illness outbreaks. These include outbreaks of salmonella associated with Kellogg's Honey Smacks cereal, precut melons and eggs, and cyclospora illnesses associated with Del Monte vegetable trays. I want to expand on these efforts today, including recent developments in the ongoing investigation of the E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce 
 
 The CDC, in their work coordinating with state and local counterparts, have determined that there are no new illnesses occurring in the romaine lettuce outbreak. The FDA, the CDC, and Arizona state officials continue to analyze samples from the Yuma region collected in early June and initial results are starting to become available. New evidence showed bacteria taken from several canal water samples in the Yuma growing region to be a genetic match to the strain of bacteria that caused the outbreak, according to a statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Thursday. “More work needs to be done to determine just how and why this strain of E. coli O157:H7 could have gotten into this body of water and how that led to contamination of romaine lettuce from multiple farms,” he said in a statement. “What’s happening is that our ability to identify outbreaks has dramatically improved due to new information technologies and laboratory techniques,” he added. Although food outbreaks seem to be in the news more lately, Gottlieb said the food supply is not necessarily any less safe than it has been in the past. “As food moves through supply chain, it often touches many different suppliers and distributors before it reaches the American consumer. The complex food supply makes it difficult to track contamination even as it creates more opportunities for germs to spread. “The breadth of this sourcing and distribution means that when a contamination event happens, an outbreak can affect people from Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between.” 
 
 The CDC estimates that foodborne illnesses affect 47.8 million people in the U.S. every year, putting 127,000 into the hospital and killing more than 3,000.
– The worst E. coli outbreak in the US since 2006 is over, with five people dead and more than 200 sickened by tainted romaine lettuce, federal authorities say. The outbreak, which affected people in 36 states and caused at least 96 hospitalizations, was traced to the Yuma region in western Arizona and southeastern California, which supplies most of the nation's salad greens in winter, reports the Washington Post. The harvest season in the area is now over. The Food and Drug Administration says a strain of E. coli with the same genetic footprint as the strain in the outbreak has been detected in irrigation canals in the region, which would explain how the bacteria apparently spread to numerous farms, NBC News reports. The last reported illness from the contaminated lettuce was June 6. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement that more work needs to be done to determine how and why the strain "could have gotten into this body of water and how that led to contamination of romaine lettuce from multiple farms." He said that while the E. coli outbreak and other recent food scares might make it seem as if the number of outbreaks is increasing, the US has one of the safest food supplies in the world and "our ability to identify outbreaks has dramatically improved due to new information technologies and laboratory techniques."