The incidence of seven commmon foodborne bacterial diseases dropped 23% between 1996 and 2001, at least in part because of new meat-processing safety rules and other federal food safety efforts in the last few years, according to the CDC.
A 1998 outbreak of E coli O157:H7 in a small town pointed up the vulnerability of small, unchlorinated water systems to contamination, according to a report in Emerging Infectious Diseases.