Botulism Statistics

Food-borne botulism is relatively rare in the United States but what is the meaning of those statistics when you are one of the people who are infected with clostridium botulism? Here are Center of Disease Control's latest statistics:

11 cases in United States
[2009]
Median age: 56 years (range: 7–91 years)

Death: 1 confirmed, 0 without information

Gender: 6 (55%) male, 5 (45%) female

Toxin type:  10 (91%) type A, 1 (9%) type B

3 outbreaks (defined as two or more cases resulting from a common exposure)

What we can take from the information presented is that food-borne illnesses such as botulism do not discriminate against gender or age. It seems that food-borne botulism cases are clustered in western states California and Washington which is attributed to the home-canning traditions of vegetables and fish.


Sources:


"National Botulism Surveillance." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. <http://www.cdc.gov/nationalsurveillance/botulism_surveillance.html> Oct 18 2011.