I'd agree data is very important. So what data, exactly, is your implied view that the FDA is the primary reason US food is safe to eat, based on? Anecdotal evidence is of limited value, but that value does tend to far exceed blind speculation. Let's say I told you that in some developing nation that 'only' 1 in 6.7 people contract some form of foodborn illness each year. You'd probably laugh at my usage of 'only' there and try to frame that as evidence of the hugely positive role that the FDA has had in the US. The problem there is that that number is actually from the US [1].

The issue with data is that it really just doesn't exist on an international level. Most nations do not provide cleanly comparable numbers. The WHO has collected and presented some data here [2] but it's not even close to an apples to apples comparison. It focus on 'disability adjusted life years' (DALY) as opposed to raw occurrence rates. DALY is a measurement of years of life lost, which means it works as a proxy for healthcare and knowledge of a population. It's also heavily driven by effects on children < 5, who make up 40% of all effects in their data. I am most interested in incidence rates among those with normal and developed immune systems since it does seem to be incredibly comparable and that is where the vast majority of the FDA's effect would lay.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/index.html

[2] - http://www.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/199350/1/97892415651...