Through its industry outreach efforts, the FDA’s National Retail Food Team is releasing two new foodborne illness testimonial videos showing the devastating effects of foodborne illness. One video highlights Sarah, a young woman whose life was changed forever six years ago after lunch at a Seattle restaurant left her stricken with an E. coli infection, an illness that continues to affect her health to this day. The second video tells the story of Etti, an immigrant from Brazil who spent three weeks in a hospital and nearly died after eating dinner at an expensive American restaurant. Her story is available in both English and Spanish and includes a message from her personal physician about how to prevent foodborne illness.
These videos support the FDA’s Retail Food Safety Initiative, which seeks to strengthen the retail and foodservice industry’s active managerial control of foodborne illness risk factors. These videos were created as part of the FDA’s industry outreach efforts designed to enhance food safety training efforts at the retail level by helping food service employees understand the roles they play in public health.
The agency encourages industry operators, food safety educators/trainers, and federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial regulatory officials to take full advantage of these materials, which are available free of charge at Retail Food Protection Industry Educational Materials.
