• Joshua G Schier, Helen Schurz Rogers, Manish M Patel, Carol A Rubin, and Martin G Belson.
• CDC/NCEH/EHHE/HSB MS F-46, National Center for Environmental Health, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway, NE, Chamblee, GA 30341, USA.
• Mil Med. 2006 Dec 1;171(12):1174-80.

AbstractThe U.S. food supply is vulnerable to contamination with chemicals and toxins. Public health officials and clinicians may misdiagnose patients with acute chemical-associated foodborne illness (CAFI) due to unfamiliarity with chemical illness, increased familiarity with infectious foodborne illness, nonspecific presentation of most foodborne chemical poisoning, lack of readily available analytic methodologies to detect chemicals, and lack of education on how to develop a differential diagnosis for CAFI. This article will review the unique features of CAFI in the acute setting, address important questions to help differentiate CAFI from other foodborne illness, discuss laboratory features of CAFI, and provide health officials and clinicians with a clinical symptom-based approach to assist with proper identification and differentiation of acute CAFI.

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