The FDA has released two new tools in their foodborne illness investigations: EIS (Executive Incident Summary Abstracts) and FOOD (Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data). The EIS will be released after an outbreak is over, providing high level information about the outbreak and any new information that may have been discovered since the investigation ended. FOOD is a comprehensive detailed report on product-pathogen pairs that have caused repeated outbreaks over the years.
The EIS reports are written after the investigation into an FDA-regulated human food product is closed. The reports will be redacted to protect confidential information as well as personally identifiable information and other info that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) states is exempt from disclosure to the public. These abstracts are written when the government decides that there is no longer a risk to the public. An EIS will be released after the close of every completed FDA foodborne outbreak investigation.
For instance, there are four new EIS reports. One is an unsolved E. coli O145 outbreak, and another adds more information to the Salmonella Montevideo outbreak linked to Bedner cucumbers.
EIS reports are managed by the FDA’s CORE network, FDA field offices, FDA subject matter experts, the CDC, and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and state and local partners. You can find the abstracts linked on the CORE Outbreak Investigation Table by the outbreak reference number, or on the new EIS landing page. The investigations will be grouped by year starting with 2025.
FOOD reports are much longer and will be more detailed, and will include historical epidemiological data, traceback and investigation findings, lab analysis, and post-response prevention activities. These reports will also feature the work of federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners.
The two new FOOD reports released this week are summaries of hepatitis A outbreaks linked to berries, and Salmonella outbreaks linked to tahini. Both of those foods have caused multiple outbreaks over the years. You can find these reports on the new FOOD landing page.
