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Food Poisoning Victims Face Long-Term Health Risk

By PritzkerLaw

Getting poisoned by Salmonella or Campylobacter is not just a short-term health concern.

That's what a medical team in Denmark has concluded in a study that found these pathogens to increase the risk of inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn's disease, for 15 years or more after a person suffers from an initial infection of either diarrheal illness.

The risk is particularly high for patients who are hospitalized for treatment of Salmonella or Campylobacter, according to Dr. Henrik Nielsen from Aarhaus University Hospital in Aalborg, Denmark, and his colleagues. Their findings are published this month in the journal Gastroenterology.

The Danish medical team compared the risks of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) between 13,148 patients with documented gastroenteritis caused by Salmonella or Campylobacter and 26,216 uninfected, healthy controls.

Over the course of seven and a half years, IBD was diagnosed in far more gastroenteritis patients (107 or 1.2 percent) than healthy control subjects (73, or .5 percent). The increased risk persisted throughout the 15-year observation period.

Reuters Health summarized a key finding: "After accounting for a variety of factors that might influence the risk, stomach bug patients had nearly a threefold increased risk of developing IBD over the entire study period, and nearly a two fold increased risk in the first year after infection.''

The study underlines what food poisoning experts at Pritzker Olsen attorneys have known for a long time: Diarrheal illnesses that people contract through no fault of their own from food contaminated with harmful bacteria is nothing to be taken lightly.  Our lawyers continually see how people suffer long-term health consequences from E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria and other adulterants in food, not to mention Hepatitis A -- which is typically spread by unsanitary practices of an infected person handling food in a restaurant.

If you or someone you know has suffered food poisoning at the hands of a meat producer, (including the Cargill E. coli outbreak),  food retailer, restaurant or caterer, protect your rights and call a food poisoning attorney. Pritzker Olsen lawyers can be contacted at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free). Or, to receive a free case consultation via the Internet, submit your information online.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on August 15, 2009 (boomark / email).