FDA Provides Additional Transparency Around Foodborne Outbreaks and Investigations by Sharing Executive Incident Summary Abstracts for Foodborne Illnesses and Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data (FOOD) Reports
Constituent Update
September 24, 2025
The FDA is reinforcing our commitment to radical transparency to ensure Americans know what is in their food and that it is safe to consume. Sharing more information, more often about outbreak investigations better informs the public and contributes to the knowledge base that industry and federal, state, and local governments can use to prevent outbreaks from happening.
As part of the agency’s transparency initiative to improve public access to information about foodborne illness outbreaks, stakeholders will now have access to two new resources for sharing information once an outbreak investigation has been concluded:
- Executive Incident Summary (EIS) Abstracts for Closed Foodborne Illness Investigations; and
- Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data (FOOD) Reports
In our continued effort to support transparency, FDA will be releasing EIS abstracts following the close of every completed FDA foodborne outbreak investigation. These EIS abstracts will allow stakeholders to better understand the outcomes of each investigation. FOOD reports constitute a more robust, data-driven, retrospective review of repeated events and will be released when there is enough data to support their development. The continued release of both of these types of information should better equip the FDA, our partners in investigations, and industry to maintain a safe food supply. These resources will also improve information access for consumers about the foods that they consume.
Executive Incident Summary (EIS) Abstracts for Closed Foodborne Illness Investigations
EIS abstracts reflect an effort to complement the FDA’s existing tools and are intended to share as much information as possible about foodborne illness investigations as soon as we can. They also highlight the work of our federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners to protect the public from foodborne illness outbreaks.
EIS abstracts are written after the closure of each outbreak or adverse event investigation linked to an FDA-regulated human food product, when the response phase has ended and there is no longer an ongoing risk to the public. These investigations are primarily managed by FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response & Evaluation (CORE) Network with additional coordination with FDA field offices, FDA subject matter experts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and our state and local partners.
EIS abstracts are a post-response deliverable and often include a high-level overview of the traceback, laboratory, and epidemiological information collected during the investigation. These abstracts are redacted in a way that complies with disclosure laws, including the Trade Secrets Act, and FDA regulations to protect confidential commercial information, personally identifiable information; and other information that is exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. These abstracts can be accessed on the CORE Investigations Table, which includes all outbreaks managed by a CORE Response Team, or on the new EIS landing page.
Foodborne Outbreak Overview of Data (FOOD) Reports
FOOD Reports provide information for industry and consumers on pathogen-commodity pairs that have been linked to repeated outbreaks of foodborne illness. The reports include highlights of historical epidemiologic data, laboratory analyses, traceback and investigational findings, and post-response prevention activities taken by the FDA, industry, academic and other federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial stakeholders. These reports were developed to provide information that may be useful in preventing future foodborne illnesses, and that may be used in food safety communication, training, and identification of research needs. Each FOOD report summarizes data and findings from select outbreak investigations related to a specific pathogen-commodity pair linked to foodborne illness outbreaks. The FOOD Reports released today provide summaries of hepatitis A outbreaks linked to berries and Salmonella outbreaks linked to tahini.
FDA evaluates the results of these investigations to help inform priorities and target resources for preventing further foodborne illness.
FDA is committed to engagement with industry and other stakeholders to identify root causes of these outbreaks and to develop collaborative strategies for preventing future outbreaks. Earlier this year, FDA published a strategy to prevent and manage viral contamination of berries with enteric viruses in order to prevent foodborne illness from this category of food. The strategy was developed and is being implemented through engagement and collaboration with the global berry industry and other interest holders. FDA has engaged with industry, academic, and regulatory stakeholders on tahini safety through technical meetings and a publication with continued engagement planned at upcoming scientific conferences. Enhanced compliance activities have provided information on the status and scope of microbiological safety issues for firms producing and importing tahini to the United States.
Additional information on outbreak-related activities and investigations can always be found on the CORE Investigation Table, FDA’s Public Health Advisories, Outbreak Investigation Reports, and Publications.