Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) in 2012: A Foundation for Food Safety in the United States

Foodborne disease is an important public health prob-lem in the United States, with an estimated 9.4 million domestically acquired illnesses and 1351 deaths from known pathogens each year [1]. The Foodborne Dis-eases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) tracks important foodborne illnesses, generating information that provides a foundation for food safety policy and prevention efforts. FoodNet has provided information that contributes to food safety efforts by estimating numbers of foodborne illnesses, monitoring trends in incidence of specific foodborne illnesses over time, at-tributing illnesses to specific foods and settings, and disseminating information [2, 3]. Since it started in 1996, FoodNet has been an excellent example of part-nership among federal and state agencies (Figure 1)