USDA estimates that Food Poisoning costs the US $74 Billion a year – and that is an undercount

The USDA put out numbers from 2023. As noted:

Costs of illness estimates are often used to approximate the public’s willingness to pay to prevent foodborne illnesses. These cost estimates provide a conservative approximation because they do not include the willingness to pay to prevent non-financial impacts of illness, including pain and suffering.

The Cost Estimates of Foodborne Illnesses data product provides per-case and total estimates of the cost of foodborne illness in the United States. Estimates are provided for total foodborne illness, foodborne illnesses by specific pathogens, and foodborne illnesses whose pathogen cause was not specified in U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disease incidence estimates.  

These estimates draw on medical treatment cost data, public data on employment and wages, CDC estimates of the incidence of foodborne illness and associated hospitalizations and deaths, and peer-reviewed scientific research. Economic Research Service (ERS) estimates model illness outcomes from short-term illnesses (e.g., doctor’s office visits), as well as long-term health outcomes (e.g., kidney failure from E. coli O157:H7 also known as STEC). These long-term health outcomes can themselves cause additional deaths and these deaths are included in ERS estimates. 

In 2023 U.S. dollars, the cost of foodborne illness in the United States was $74.7 billion (table 1). Most of this cost was due to serious illnesses whose pathogen cause has been specified. These serious illnesses accounted for 20 percent of cases, but 60 percent of the total cost. The pathogen cause of most foodborne illnesses is never identified because most illnesses are relatively mild. Most individuals do not seek medical care. Those who do are generally treated on the basis of their symptoms, rather than on the basis of laboratory tests needed to identify the illness’s pathogen cause. These milder illnesses, whose pathogen cause is not specified (described as “other foodborne gastroenteritis” in table 1), accounted for 80 percent of cases and 40 percent of total cost. 

Cost varies by pathogen due to both the extent and severity of illnesses the pathogens cause. Total cost by pathogen ranges from $100,000 for cholera (a relatively rare disease in the United States) to $17 billion for nontyphoidal Salmonella. Average per-case cost by pathogen ranges from $196 for Bacillus cereus to $4.6 million for Vibrio vulnificus. Table 2 presents the mean cost of illness estimates for select pathogens. These are pathogens that rank high in terms of total or per-case cost. A spreadsheet with per-case and total cost estimates for each of the 31 pathogens is included in the data product and available for download below. 

The data product provides a set of consistent, peer-reviewed estimates of the cost of U.S. foodborne illnesses that can be used by the public and regulatory agencies to understand the total impact of foodborne illnesses in the United States and the relative impact of different pathogen-specific foodborne pathogens and illnesses.  

Costs of illness estimates are often used to approximate the public’s willingness to pay to prevent foodborne illnesses. These cost estimates provide a conservative approximation because they do not include the willingness to pay to prevent non-financial impacts of illness, including pain and suffering.

The cost estimates in this data product are drawn from the 2025 article, Hoffmann et al., Economic burden of foodborne illnesses acquired in the United States (more information is available on the Documentation page). The Background & History page provides information about changes to this data product as estimates and the underlying methodology have been updated. The current estimates should not be used in comparison with previous estimates.

Republished with permission from Bill Marler and Marler Clark. Copyright (c) Marler Clark LLP, PS. All rights reserved.