It turns out that tainted food cannot only make people sick, but it can also cost them a bundle in the process.

A new consumer research report released Wednesday has found that the health-related costs of food-borne illnesses total $152 billion per year, including the costs of medical bills, lost wages and lost productivity. That price tag is nearly five times that of earlier estimates calculated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The findings come as regulatory efforts to patrol the country's food sector are growing amid reports of a string of costly -- and sometimes fatal -- outbreaks of food-borne illness involving peanuts, jalapeno peppers, spinach, beef and other foods.

The report, sponsored by the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University, provides the most comprehensive examination yet of health costs associated with flaws in the nation's food safety system and "demonstrates the burden of food-borne illness," said Sandra Eskin, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Food Safety Campaign, a supporter of the study.

In 1997, the USDA reportedly pegged the public cost of sickness and death from eating tainted food at $35 billion per year. But that research looked at the fallout from only a handful of food-borne pathogens and didn't include as many long-term effects from such illnesses, including how they can affect a person's quality of life.

The Produce Safety Project identified 27 pathogens, said Robert Scharff, an economist who authored the newly released report, including those responsible for making a million or more Americans sick each year -- such as norovirus or salmonella -- as well as microbes such as botulism, which sicken far fewer people.

Yet in most cases, researchers still can't pinpoint why or how people get ill from what they eat. The study attributes just over

80 percent of the illnesses and two-thirds of the costs to unknown food-related causes, a determination made by statistical analysis of symptoms associated with food-borne sickness such as diarrhea, Scharff said.

Costs varied significantly by state and were influenced by regional differences in diet and health, varying prices for medical care and regulators' ability to quickly respond and curtail food contamination outbreaks.

Officials from the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of most of the nation's food supply, said they hadn't yet reviewed the report's findings.

The report is aimed at applying pressure on Congress to pass more stringent food safety legislation by making the case that such oversight is a matter of national economic well-being as well as public health, according to backers of the report.

A food safety bill that would increase inspections, fund research and force the industry to beef up its record-keeping cleared the House of Representatives last summer. A similar measure unanimously cleared a U.S. Senate committee in November. But momentum for the bill has stalled, as Congress remains embroiled in a fight over health care.

Reported by ANDREW ZAJAC AND P.J. HUFFSTUTTER TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU