Salmonella driving increase in U.S. food poisoning cases

(CBS/AP) It's enough to make you sick.

A new government report shows that food poisoning strikes a whopping 50 million Americans and kills 3,000 each year - and that rates of food-borne illness are trending up, with salmonella driving the increase.

The report, released Tuesday, is based on food-borne infections in 10 states, or about 15 percent of the U.S. population. Year-to-year numbers can be misleading, especially from just a sample of states. But the report is thought to give a good indication of food poisoning trends.

More than 19,000 cases of food poisoning were reported in those states last year. That was up from 17,500 cases in 2009, and about 18,500 in 2008. Last year, there were 4,200 hospitalizations and 68 deaths in those states.

Health officials note that the number of food poisoning cases has fallen about a quarter since tracking began 15 years ago. Rates for most of the illnesses have also been relatively flat - but not for salmonella. The bug caused the most illnesses of the nine leading food-poisoning causes last year. Salmonella cases haven't diminished in 15 years, and rose in the last few years by 10 percent.

"We've made virtually no progress against salmonella," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC.

One of the biggest U.S. outbreaks last year involved salmonella-tainted eggs. It may have sickened as many as 56,000, according to the CDC. That probably contributed to the increase seen in Tuesday's report, said CDC epidemiologist Dr. Christopher Braden.

The FDA last summer put in place new rules that should reduce illnesses caused by salmonella in eggs, the FDA's Michael R. Taylor said.

Officials hope to put the same kind of dent in salmonella that they did with E. coli O157. The bacteria became infamous in a 1993 outbreak linked to Jack in the Box hamburgers.

More regulation and testing of meat helped cut those E. coli cases in half - from a rate of 2 per 100,000 people to less than 1 per 100,000 last year.

In the bad news department, officials are seeing jumps in illness caused by "vibrio" bacteria, which are associated with shellfish. There were fewer than 200 vibrio cases reported in 2010, but that's more than double the numbers seen in the 1990s.

According to Braden, vibrio cases can be prevented by flash-freezing and pasteurization of oysters.

The USDA has more on salmonella poisoning.