A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that after “important declines” seen in previous years, the incidence of many food-borne illnesses in the United States has leveled off in the past few years.  U.S. health officials conclude that progress on food safety has plateaued, and that further measures are needed to prevent more food-borne illness.

The findings are from 2008 data reported by the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), a collaborative project of CDC, the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the FDA, and 10 state sites. Preliminary data from FoodNet indicate that diagnosed and reported illnesses from an array of bacteria, including campylobacter, cryptosporidium, cyclospora, listeria, shiga toxin-producing escherichia coli (STEC), shigella, vibrio and yersinia, have basically stayed the same since 2004.

In the case of salmonella, the bacteria recently found in peanuts and pistachios, infections may be trending upward. The report said that in 2008, 16 of every 100,000 people in the United States had laboratory-confirmed cases of salmonella infections. That translates into about 48,000 serious illnesses, since individual stool samples are generally sent to laboratories only when someone is suffering a severe bout. In 2005, the figure was 14 people per 100,000, or about 42,000 cases of laboratory-confirmed salmonella infections.

Part of the problem is that as food supply chains get longer, and global distribution networks more complex, there are simply more opportunities for things to go wrong, according to the CDC. If a manufacturer or distributor has wider reach, a single tainted ingredient can potentially infect large numbers of people. Often, therefore, outbreaks of food-borne disease can result in mass tort litigation.

Roughly 76 million people in the United States suffer food-borne illnesses each year, 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 die, according to CDC estimates. Children younger than 4 are sickened by food more than those in any other age group, but adults over age 50 suffer more hospitalizations and death as a result of food-related infections.

The CDC report follows on the heels of a report released last week by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finding that identifying the actual suppliers and distributors of tainted food products remains a serious issue.