AMA, Gov't Educate on Food Illness

Wednesday, January 24th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” When Susan Doneth took her teen-age daughter to the hospital in 1998, she feared the teen-ager was a victim of food poisoning. The vomiting and bloody diarrhea were symptoms of an attack by the deadly bacteria, E. coli O157:H7.

The doctor diagnosed it as an ordinary intestinal infection and prescribed antibiotics, the wrong thing to do for E. coli. Studies suggest that drugs actually can aggravate the illness.

Doneth's daughter eventually recovered, once a test the Michigan woman requested showed the illness was E. coli-related and the antibiotics were stopped. But such mistakes in diagnosing foodborne illnesses aren't unusual, experts say.

Now, the American Medical Association and the government have developed an information kit, which will be distributed around the country, to educate doctors about foodborne illnesses.

``Many of these illnesses that we are seeing that are foodborne were not even known as recently as 10 to 15 years ago,'' said Edward Hill, who directs the training of family-practice residents at the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo. ``Many of the physicians practicing regularly every day, when they were in training had never even heard of these illnesses.''

AMA's information kit includes charts listing the symptoms, likely food sources and treatments for dozens of foodborne illnesses. Also included are booklets containing case studies for some of the more dangerous pathogens, such as E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes.

The E. coli booklet warns that killing the bacteria with antibiotics can release kidney-damaging toxins. That's what happened to Doneth's daughter.

``Doctors need to be much more educated than they are in finding symptoms of foodborne illness and on things they shouldn't be doing,'' she said.

Some 15,000 of the kits are being given to state and county medical societies, and the material also is posted on the Internet.

Doctors have an incentive to study the material. They can get credit for continuing education, an annual licensing requirement in most states, by passing a test on the information.

About 76 million cases of foodborne illness are diagnosed nationwide each year, resulting in 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Young children, pregnant women, the elderly and other people with weakened immune systems face the highest risk for foodborne illness. Immune systems may be weakened by medical treatments, such as steroids or chemotherapy, or by diseases such as AIDS, cancer or diabetes.

``Incorrect diagnosis and incorrect treatment can make a bad situation worse,'' said Nancy Donley, president of the advocacy group Safe Tables Our Priority. Her son died of E. coli poisoning in 1993. ``The horror stories we get, it's just awful. That's why I'm encouraged to hear something coming forward from the medical community.''

The AMA kit includes information that doctors can give their patients on avoiding food poisoning, including proper food-handling techniques.

``Food safety is everyone's responsibility,'' said Margaret Glavin, associate administrator of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. ``Physicians can play an enormous role in educating their patients, especially their at-risk populations, about preventing foodborne illness.''

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On the Net: AMA campaign page: http://www.ama-assn.org/foodborne

Government's food safety site: http://www.foodsafety.gov

Safe Tables Our Priority: http://www.stop-usa.org