Foodborne illness is notoriously underreported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that for every confirmed case of food poisoning, dozens more go unreported because people never seek medical care or fail to connect their illness to a meal. In this gap, an unlikely tool has emerged: social media. Platforms once thought of as simply a place for food photography, restaurant reviews, and late-night rants are now proving invaluable to public health officials as a real-time outbreak detection system.

Why Traditional Outbreak Detection Falls Short

Historically, foodborne illness outbreaks were identified only when clusters of people reported symptoms to their doctors, leading to laboratory testing and eventually a call to local or federal health departments. This pr

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