Poultry was the most commonly identified source of food poisoning in the United States in 2006, followed by leafy vegetables and fruits and nuts, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

After a concerted campaign by the federal Department of Agriculture to improve the safety of chickens, the number of people sickened by contaminated poultry in 2006 declined compared with an average of the previous five years, according to C.D.C. researchers.

But problems persist. Most of the poultry-related illnesses, the centers found, were associated with Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that commonly causes abdominal cramping and diarrhea usually within 10 to 12 hours after ingestion. The spores from this bacterium often survive cooking, so keeping poultry meat at temperatures low enough to prevent contamination during processing and storage is critical.

Researchers counted leafy vegetables, fungi, root vegetables, sprouts and vegetables from vines or stalks as separate categories. Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, noted that if all of the produce categories were combined, outbreaks associated with vegetables would have far exceeded those in poultry…

While poultry is the most common source of illnesses among the 17 different foods tracked by federal officials, the C.D.C. found that two-thirds of all food-related illnesses traced to a lone ingredient were caused by viruses, which are often added to food by restaurant workers who fail to wash their hands. Such viruses often cause what many people refer to as a “stomach flu,” one to two days of nausea and vomiting that is unrelated to the flu virus.

Salmonella, the bacteria found in nationwide outbreaks of contaminated peanut butter, spinach and tomatoes, was the second-leading cause of sole-source food illnesses, the centers found.

I guess I’ll stick with hamburgers…