As I said in the last post, comparative data on food safety in different countries is tough to find, so the mantra-like claim of U.S. officials that the U.S. has the "safest food supply" in the world generally goes unchallenged. My thanks to CSPI's Caroline Smith DeWaal for calling my attention to what little data actually exist. In a 2005 report, CSPI finds this:

   "Canada, with a population of 32 million, has approximately 10,000 reported cases of foodborne diseases each year and an estimated two million actual cases. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.CDC) estimates that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses annually among the country’s 294 million residents, as well as 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths per year."

As a few seconds with a calculator will show, that translates to a rate of 1 case of foodborne illness per 16 people in Canada, compared to 1 case per 4 people in the U.S.

The "safest food supply in the world"? Not according to hard evidence.