Shopper cards may save your life, food safety sleuths say

If you have a warehouse membership card in your wallet or a supermarket shopper tag on your key chain, you might regard it as a good way to save money. But public health officials say it may be an even better way to save lives. More local health departments -- along with state and federal investigators -- are relying on the detailed information about what went in consumers’ shopping carts to track down outbreaks of foodborne illness, experts say. Identifying exactly which products were purchased by victims of food poisoning has become a standard tool for public health investigators, said officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We are definitely supportive of the use of shopper cards during these outbreak investigations,” said Casey Barton Behravesh, deputy chief of the CDC’s outbreak and prevention branch of the division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases. “The product, the flavor, the lot code, the best by date: That is all tracked with these purchases.” The CDC estimates that 48 million Americans get foodborne illnesses every year, 128,000 of them are hospitalized and 3,000 die. http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/13/17273535-shopper-cards-may-save-your-life-food-safety-sleuths-say?lite