Enteric Disease Research Paper

especially on imported food, and importers will find themselves responsible for any damages that may occur from their food ("Lawmakers Propose") Yet, like a game of tug of war, food companies must react to being forced into raising their quality standards. Better quality correlates highly to more money spent, and when food companies are forced to spend more money on keeping their food, farms and factories up to par, the meat, poultry or other food products will certainly be raised in price. In the end, the long term effects will amount to the fixing of one problem, enteric disease, while causing a new problem, which would be more expensive products. However, the economy would be better as a whole because disease rates would be far decreased, …show more content…
The fact is that there are cases of illness annually in the United States resulting from the pathogens and microbes that cause enteric disease. It is proof that enteric disease is a burden on humans that cannot be ignored. The effects of a stomach virus on productiveness is profound; a person afflicted with an enteric disease can be cordoned to bed for days at a time. During a period of sickness, people are certainly forced to rely on sick days from work, and so a typical enteric disease can consume large amounts of paid hours. Not only is a person afflicted with an enteric disease losing income, but the economy as a whole is affected by illnesses because workers calling in sick lower profits. If a sick worker happens to be employed at a meat processing plant, then all meat would become infected as a result. Thankfully, all food processing companies realize the danger of allowing sick people to come to work; however, the company simply does not want to be sued for an outbreak of disease, and their interest is not directly for the health of the people. Still, with many deaths in the United States annually caused by salmonella, there is no company that wishes to be the reservoir of a disease that killed people since that is inconvenient for business. However, these companies are incorrect in their belief that society can subsist on low quality food; the food business is not easily monopolized and better food, not laden with microbes, will prevail in supply. For instance, while poor people are forced to buy food at a fast food chain because it is cheap and filling, in the future, the only people who will ever buy fast food will be such people that cannot afford anything greater, and that is because those with any amount of additional money will simply buy food that is proven safe. The food of the