Contaminated food causes illness ranging from the benign - minor stomachaches - to life threatening E coli infections. Despite the headlines generated by food scares and outbreaks of contaminants -- such as the salmonella outbreak that led to a massive recall of peanut products beginning in January 2009 -- food safety rarely gets the attention it deserves. The public is not really aware of the overall public health cost of food-borne illnesses resulting in 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations each year

The 10 Most Dangerous Foods

Hot Dogs, Fugu, Ackee, Peanuts, Leafy Greens, Rhubarb, Tuna, Cassava, Coffee, Mushrooms.

New Study Pegs Cost at $152 Bil per Year

According to a new study by the Produce Safety Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trust., the consequences of food-borne illness -- including doctor visits, medication, lost work days and pain and suffering -- cost the U.S. an estimated $152 billion annually.

Rosa DeLauro, a Democratic Representative from Connecticut, has taken the lead on food safety in Congress. "These are preventable deaths," she said, "Those numbers represent real sickness, pain and even death for American families". President Barack Obama called for new food-safety regulations a year ago, and the House of Representatives passed a bill to overhaul the system last July. The onus now is on the Senate, which is still waiting to act. "It's our job to go to war against food-borne illness," says DeLauro. "We can't afford to wait." At $152 billion a year, the meter is running.

Previous Food Poisoning Cost Estimates Way Low

Previous reports, by the USDA and FDA, have pegged the total cost of food-borne illness at between $6.9 billion and $35 billion, undercounted because most cases of food-borne illness are never officially reported.

The Produce Safety Project study used CDC data showing that there are 76 million new cases of food-borne illness in the U.S. each year. Study author Robert Scharff, a professor at Ohio State University and a former FDA economist, then tried to account for the overall cost of illness, factoring in every expense, from onetime costs for prescription medication to losses in "quality of life. The new estimate of cost is well above previous calculations of the impact of food-safety problems, and the new study suggests that food- borne illness will continue to take an increasing toll on public health if the nation's frayed food-safety net is not repaired.

Meanwhile, the food system itself has grown more complex. Bagged salad, for instance, which has proven to be a persistent risk for contamination, can include produce from several different farms, which makes it difficult to trace outbreaks of illness to their source. Our food system is 21st century, but our government's food-safety system is stuck in the 1900s.