Salmonella Blog - Surveillance & analysis on salmonella news & outbreaks

Nicols Fox, author of Spoiled: Why our food is making us sick and It Was Probably Something You Ate, was asked to review Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation, for the Washington Post in 2001 because of her work on the subject of foodborne pathogens.

When a “massive production of hamburger is created,” says Fox, “if there’s one contaminated cow, it can contaminate the entire lot, and then that entire lot is made into little frozen hamburger patties that are then distributed all over the United States. Thus, instead of having maybe one or two people get sick, you have an outbreak that can cover the breadth of the United States.”

These illnesses are problems “we really hadn’t confronted before that were associated with food,” says Fox. “I looked at how changes in lifestyle, culture, food production, processing and distribution had really created these new pathogens, and they really were new.”

 

The owners of a Camden restaurant have settled a lawsuit by the family of a man who died after eating at the restaurant last year, according to WIS10 News.

The owners of Old South restaurant and the company that made an oven in the restaurant will pay the family of 58-year-old James Arledge of Lugoff more than $710,000. Arledge died in May 2005 from cardiac arrhythmia related to salmonella poisoning.

About 300 people became ill after eating undercooked turkey at the restaurant. The salmonella outbreak was the largest in state history.

At least nine lawsuits have been filed against the restaurant. Old South has agreed to pay $9,000 to the family of a nine-year-old boy. One lawsuit was dismissed and six others are pending.
 

Health officials have determined that soy lecithin in some Hershey products tested positive for salmonella, but they still are unsure how the soy was contaminated.

Fears of salmonella contamination at the company's factory in Smith Falls, Ontario prompted a recall last weekend of a variety of chocolate bars and candies. Hershey now says soy lecithin tested positive for salmonella contamination.

Soy lecithin is used to help chocolate flow more easily during manufacturing.

The company, which employs 500 workers in the eastern Ontario town, shut down production and issued a recall of 25 products after a routine inspection inside the plant detected salmonella on Nov. 9.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the plant will remain closed until an investigation has been completed.
 

Fears of salmonella contamination has driven chocolate-maker Hershey to recall a wide variety of its chocolate bars and candies made at its Smiths Falls, Ontario plant.

However, a company spokesperson said the risk to consumers is low, since “most of the product in question is either already in our control or is currently being retrieved from our customers,” according to company spokesperson Stephanie Moritz.

The source of the contamination is believed to be an ingredient from an outside supplier sent to the company's plant, but that has not been confirmed.

Hershey Canada Inc. of Mississauga voluntarily recalled the products from the marketplace, and has said that there have been no reported illnesses associated with the recalled product.
 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that at least 183 people in 18 states had been confirmed ill with Salmonellosis as part of a nation-wide outbreak of Salmonella typhimurium infections that has been traced to contaminated tomatoes.

Twenty-two people were hospitalized during the outbreak, which peaked in September and is now over, according to the CDC.

In June and July 2004, over 400 people became ill with Salmonella infections after eating contaminated tomatoes served at Sheetz convenience stores in the Eastern United States.

Bill Marler, a nationally recognized food safety advocate and attorney, called on the tomato industry to “clean up its act and make food safe.”

“This is the second large outbreak in two years that has come on the heels of FDA advice on how to prevent outbreaks among consumers of fresh tomatoes,” Marler said. “Clearly, the fresh tomato industry has not yet done enough to ensure the safety of its product.”
 

Tomatoes served in restaurants were the source of a nationwide Salmonella outbreak, according to Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

The Salmonella outbreak resulted in 183 confirmed illnesses.  No one died in the outbreak, but 22 people were hospitalized, according to the Associated Press.

The cases of illness peaked in late September, leading officials to believe the outbreak is now over.
 

Food safety experts are suggesting that contaminated tomatoes and infected food service workers might have played a role in a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened 171 people in 19 states. Most of the states affected are in the eastern half of the nation.

The CDC said the outbreak appears to be over. The agency said the hunt for the source of the outbreak may take days to weeks, according to CIDRAP News.

David Acheson, MD, chief medical officer for the FDA's CFSAN, told the Associated Press yesterday that if fresh tomatoes are to blame in the outbreak, it will be more difficult to trace the original source of the contamination than it was in the recent E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to fresh spinach.

FDA is depending on the CDC and state and local health investigators to consider food workers as the possible source of contamination.
 

A salmonella outbreak that sickened dozens of people in Washington and 18 other states appears to be over, while investigators remain unsure how it began. Health officials believe the outbreak may be linked to tomatoes or other fresh produce contaminated with the bacteria, but they haven't been able to pinpoint a specific product or source.

There have been no deaths, but 171 people have fallen sick.

The CDC continues to interview people sickened in the outbreak, but the information gathered is too vague or broad for the FDA to trace the contamination to its source.