If you raise chicks and you are in the catering business, you need to be extra careful not to cross contaminate the food you serve with salmonella from the chicks you keep.

It’s looking like that’s what happened in North Dakota where an unlicensed caterer linked to three separate incidents of salmonella food poisoning that sickened more than 75 people and hospitalized nine turned out to also be a chicken rancher.

On the second and third weekends in June, Aggie Jennings of rural McLean County, North Dakota catered a family reunion in Wilton, and weddings in Washburn and McClusky. At each event, people were poisoned with salmonella.

North Dakota health officials say Ms. Jennings did not have a catering license, an apparent Class B misdemeanor. As for charging her with legal responsibility for the outbreaks, they are first waiting for laboratory reports.

Food samples from one of the weddings, along with swab and water samples from the Jennings’ home are being tested for salmonella bacteria.   Jennings’ kitchen is not separate from her home, which is required for a catering licenses.

Read about the investigation in the Bismarck Tribune. 

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There was a wedding in Washburn and a family reunion in Wilton that will probably be remembered for a long time. Both North Dakota towns are north of Bismarck.  There apparently was a common ingredient at both events--salmonella.  And it was not pretty.

About 40 people got sick, 11 were hospitalized, and two were in intensive care.

Doug Ness told KSYR-TV that he had to take four days off of work from his job as a chiropractor at Active Life Chiropractic in Bismarck last week. "I couldn`t leave my bed," Ness says. " Basically it was bed to bathroom and it wasn`t much fun."

He was just one of many who got sick from salmonella bacteria after eating from the taco bar at his friend`s wedding in Washburn.   "Later than afternoon I`d heard from some of my friends that went to E.R. and they had I.V.s and were given morphine for the pain or discomfort so from there we kind of knew something was going on," Ness says.

Others reported the same symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea after a reunion in Wilton hosted by the same caterer.

"There`s a common caterer but it`s really too soon to identify what`s really happened here," state epidemiologist Kirby Kruger told the television station. "We`re still doing some investigation and we`re still waiting for some results to come back."

Read more about the outbreak in the North Dakota's press release from last Friday.

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To list all the peanut products they've recalled takes a couple pages each for Kellogg Co. and Clif Bar Inc.  

For Kellogg's, it includes products like Famous Amos Peanut Butter Cookies and Keebler Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies.  For Clif Bar, MOJO Dipped Chocolate Peanut and  MOJO Dipped Peanut Butter and Jelly are on the lengthy recall lists.

Neither Kellogg's nor Clif Bar paid much if any attention to conditions at the Peanut Corporation of America,  which produced the peanut products used as ingredients by the other food companies. PCA peanut butter and peanut paste was found to be the source of a Salmonella  Typhimurium outbreak that made at least 700 people sick and killed nine people.

Yesterday, Kellogg's and Clif Bar weighed in as the latest "victims," filing claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Lynchburg, respectively for $60 million and $27 million to cover their recall costs.  Those were among the claims that raised the total amount of creditor claims against PCA to nearly $311 million.

Most of the food companies who bought peanut butter and paste from PCA as ingredients for their goods did not file claims for the cost of recall.  As of June 12th, 3,916 products were on the recall list. The deadline for businesses to file claims was yesterday.

Meanwhile, the deadline for filing personal income claims with the Bankruptcy Court has been extended to Oct. 31. 

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Richardson Elementary School students in Lee's Summit, MO were sent home with warning letters yesterday after two kindergartners were hospitalized with salmonella.

A boy, listed in fair condition, and a girl, whose condition was not being released, were enrolled in Richardson's Kids Country during the school year.

Health officials could not say if the illnesses are school related.

Salmonella is often spread through contaminated food and less frequently from person-to-person or on toys and other objects. The school has instructed its district custodians to do additional cleaning and disinfecting at Richardson Elementary as a precaution.

FOX-4 in Kansas City is covering the situation here.

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 Homemade queso fresco , a Mexican-style soft cheese made with raw milk, is being blamed by health officials for a salmonella outbreak in Utah's Salt Lake Valley.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported last week on seven salmonella cases that were being linked to someone in Kearns, Utah who was making queso fresco using raw milk from a cow on a nearby farm.

Larry Lewis, spokesman for the State Department of Agriculture, said officials believe the contaminated cheese was sold or given away to friends and neighbors, but not produced or sold commercially.

"We believe the contamination came from the raw milk," Lewis said. However, the cheese maker would not tell officials where he obtained the milk.

Health officials say the sick in Utah are suffering from "Salmonella Newport."  They believe the outbreak is more widespread than just the seven cases as other salmonella cases have been reported. For more from the SL Tribune, go here.

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 Here are the highlights of an update just posted from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the sprout-caused Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that has impacted at least 14 states:

•  A preliminary report of the investigation is available from CDC's, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, MMWR  [PDF - 114 KB].
• Since February 2009, 235 persons from 14 states have been infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul. Patients range in age from < 1 to 85 years old with reports of 3% persons hospitalized and no deaths.
• Collaborative investigative efforts of many local, state, and federal public health, agriculture and regulatory agencies led to the implication of alfalfa sprouts.
• The alfalfa sprouts were produced at several sprout growers and appear to involve only seeds sold by one seed company that originated from one grower which strongly suggests that the seeds were contaminated.
• This outbreak may indicate a need to determine how well existing FDA guidance is being implemented (since it is voluntary), as well as to explore additional studies of measures that can be taken to prevent, detect, and eliminate contamination of seeds and sprouts.
• FDA and CDC continue to recommend that consumers not eat raw alfalfa sprouts, including sprout blends containing alfalfa sprouts, until further notice because the product has been linked to Salmonella serotype Saintpaul contamination. Other types of sprouts have not been implicated.

 Cases Infected with the Outbreak Strain of Salmonella Saintpaul Via Alfalfa Sprouts

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 The CDC reports that since mid-March, 35 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul have been reported from 7 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Michigan (17), Minnesota (4), Ohio (3), Pennsylvania (6), South Dakota (2), Utah (1), and West Virginia (2). Cases are still being reported, and possible cases are in various stages of laboratory testing, so illnesses may be reported from other states. No deaths have been reported.  State and local authorities, CDC, and FDA have linked this outbreak to eating alfalfa sprouts. Most of those who became ill reported eating raw alfalfa sprouts. Some reported eating sprouts at restaurants; others purchased sprouts at the retail level.

The initial investigation has traced the contaminated raw alfalfa sprouts to multiple sprout growers in multiple states. This suggests a problem with the seeds used, as well as the possible failure of the sprout growers involved to appropriately and consistently follow the FDA Sprout Guidance issued in 1999.  The guidance recommends an effective seed disinfection treatment immediately before the start of sprouting (such as treating seeds in a 20,000 parts per million calcium hypochlorite solution with agitation for 15 minutes) and regularly testing the water used for every batch of sprouts for Salmonella and E coli O157:H7.

This outbreak appears to be an extension of an earlier outbreak in 2009. In February and March, an outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul infections occurred in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota. This outbreak was linked to raw alfalfa sprouts produced at a single facility, and the outbreak strain was indistinguishable from that of the more recently reported cases. CDC is also currently working with public health officials in several states and FDA to investigate an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections linked with eating alfalfa sprouts.

So, where did the seeds come from, and why not a recall of seeds?

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This time of year, you see school kids on all sorts of field trips.   Seems teachers can only stand to be locked up with the little buggers for so long.   What could be better than taking them out to something called "Stone Environmental" camp on a rented piece of the "Purity Springs Resort" in Madison, N.H.?

You are promised that the little juveniles "will take a part of the environment" home with them.  Little did they expect that part of the environment leaving camp with them would be Salmonella bacteria!

That, however, is pretty much the story in New England where first 70 of 98 students from the Woodbury Middle School were struck by Salmonella poisoning while attending the Stone Environmental Camp.   Then,  20 of 30 Dedham Country Day School fifth-graders also got sick on the field trip.

The first group was at Stone during the week of April 13th and the second the following week on April 22-24.   Stone shut down, but is now free to re-open as health officials have discovered the source of the Salmonella was pudding provided to the campers by the Purity Springs Resort.

Dedham Daily News has story here.

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The Obama Administration is far from having its own people in place to run the food safety machinery of the federal government. However, we are starting to see some of the changes that were promised in last year's campaign. One of these changes is to issue warnings to the public not to eat something once its apparent there is a problem. The latest such warning was issued in regards to raw spouts.

Here's what your federal government had to say in issuing the warning on Sunday:

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today recommended that consumers not eat raw alfalfa sprouts, including sprout blends containing alfalfa sprouts, until further notice because the product has been linked to Salmonella serotype Saintpaul contamination. Other types of sprouts have not been implicated at this time.

The investigation indicates that the problem may be linked to contamination of seeds for alfalfa sprouts. Because suspect lots of seeds may be sold around the country and may account for a large proportion of the alfalfa seeds currently being used by sprout growers, and cases of illness are spread across multiple states, FDA and CDC are issuing this general advisory.

FDA will work with the alfalfa sprout industry to help identify which seeds and alfalfa sprouts are not connected with this contamination, so that this advisory can be changed as quickly as possible.

CDC, FDA and six State and local authorities have associated this outbreak with eating raw alfalfa sprouts. Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia have reported 31 cases of illness with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul to CDC. Most of those who became ill reported eating raw alfalfa sprouts. Some reported eating raw sprouts at restaurants; others reported purchasing the raw sprouts at the retail level.

The illnesses began in mid-March. Cases are still being reported, and possible cases are in various stages of laboratory testing, so illnesses may appear in other states. No deaths have been reported. The number of infected people may be higher than currently reported because some illnesses have not yet been confirmed with laboratory testing.

The CDC and FDA recommend at all times that persons at high risk for complications, such as the elderly, young children, and those with compromised immune systems, not eat raw sprouts because of the risk of contamination with Salmonella or other bacteria. Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy individuals infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses, such as meningitis and bone infections.

Initial investigation results trace the contaminated raw alfalfa sprouts to multiple sprout growers in multiple states. This suggests a potential problem with the seeds used, as well as the possible failure of the sprout growers involved to appropriately and consistently follow the FDA Sprout Guidance issued in 1999http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/sprougd1.html. The guidance recommends an effective seed disinfection treatment immediately before the start of sprouting (such as treating seed in 20,000 parts per million Calcium hypochlorite solution with agitation for 15 minutes) and regularly testing the water used for every batch of sprouts for Salmonella and E coli O157:H7 contamination.

Continue Reading...

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Experts for lawyers representing the victims of the Salmonella Typhimurium inspected both the Peanut Corporation of America's Plainview, TX and Blakely, GA plants this week.  With nine deaths and hundreds of illnesses linked to the Salmonella contamination found inside the PCA facilities, media attention on this week's first inspections by outside experts was high.

Jennifer Emert at Georgia's WALB News spoke to some of those experts and painted a sickening picture of the condition of the plants now associated with the largest recall of peanut products in U.S. history.   Emert reported:

Pictures taken Thursday inside the Blakely Peanut Corporation of America plant, show disturbing images, a screwdriver left inside a machine where peanuts were stored. A small piece of wire inside the hopper with peanuts matching wire found inside the plant's maintenance area, and that's not all.

"When he pulled the bottom release door of the hopper and let some of the peanut product down there was a wasp and a beetle that was alive," said George Pearl, Alps Evidence & Photo President.

"A lot of grease, a lot of oil, a lot of peanut waste that's trapped in pieces of equipment," said Roy Costa, a former Health Inspector.

The Plainview, Texas plant was worse with dead mice on the floor. Attorney Bill Marler and his team of six inspectors spent several hours looking the plant over from the leaks in the roof to the gaps in the bay doors.

Rodents and insects can spread the Salmonella bacteria.   As of noon yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was reporting 3,913 peanut and peanut related products being on the recall list because they have ingredients from the PCA plants.

More from WALB here.

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We were chatting earlier today with one of the nation’s experts on food borne illnesses. He was making the point that people in good health, in the prime of their life, can be cut down by food-borne illnesses like Salmonella.

And Salmonella seems to be everywhere this spring. Southeast Michigan has 16 confirmed cases of Salmonella with two of the ill in hospitals. Michigan health officials are warning state residents not to eat raw sprouts until more is known.  The Michigan sprouts problem may be related to the outbreak earlier this year blamed on an Omaha company.

Meanwhile across the country in California it’s spice not sprouts that is making people sick with Salmonella. The Centers on Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says 45 of the 60 people known to be sick with the spice-related Salmonella are residents of the Golden Bear State.

The Sacramento Bee summed up the situation this way:

White and black pepper and curry powder sold in 5-pound containers under the "Natural and Delicious" label by CJ United Corp., based in Oakland, have been recalled, according to a statement on the state Department of Public Health's Web site.

Sacramento County had five reported salmonella cases, and one case has been reported in both Placer and El Dorado counties, according to Ron Owens, a Department of Public Health spokesman.

The following counties also have reported salmonella cases linked to the spice recall: Santa Clara, seven; Alameda, five; San Francisco, five; San Mateo, five; Contra Costa, four; San Joaquin, two; Sonoma, two; and one case each in Humboldt, Madera, Marin, Merced, Mono, Napa, Santa Cruz and Solano.

The corporation received the products from U.F. Union International Food Co., which is at the nexus of a spice recall that began late last month.  Union International Food has recalled all of its products produced in Union City because of potential contamination with salmonella.

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The recall of sprouts by SunSprout Enterprises Inc. of Omaha, Neb did not come quick enough for 34 Iowans including 3 living clear across the state on the banks of the Mississippi River in Scott County.

The 34 Iowans are suffering from Salmonella St. Paul, the very bacteria found in the recalled sprouts. After the Omaha firm's March 3 recall of alfalfa sprouts, onion sprouts, and gourmet sprouts because of possible salmonella contamination, people in the upper midwest began getting sick.

According to the Quad City Times, the three Scott County victims ate the bad sprouts at at a local restaurant, but health officials are not holding it accountable.  The newspaper reported that:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, announced March 3 a recall of alfalfa sprouts, onion sprouts and gourmet sprouts because of a possible health risk.

Several cases of Salmonella St. Paul were reported in Nebraska and Iowa, and the supplier, SunSprout Enterprises Inc. of Omaha, Neb., voluntarily recalled its product.

However, those warnings came after the area restaurant had unknowingly served sprouts supplied by the Omaha firm and also after the three customers had eaten the affected food items, Hall said. “The restaurant would not have had the information at the time to know sprouts were a concern,” she added.

Quad City health officials were aggressive in contacting area sprout outlets as soon as the warning was issued.   For more from the QCT, go here.

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 For the last few weeks the FDA and Westco Fruit and Nuts Inc. (Westco/Westcott), have been "negotiating" on whether a recall would be issued of Westco/Westcott peanut products.  Today the FDA dropped the hammer down.  From the FDA Website:

At the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Marshals today executed an inspection warrant at Westco Fruit and Nuts Inc. (Westco/Westcott), an Irvington, N.J.-based company. Westco/Westcott did not provide access to distribution documents and declined to recall products after an FDA request. Regulated companies are required by law to grant FDA entry for inspection, as well as provide access to distribution records. The FDA does not have authority to compel companies to recall food products, such as peanuts.  The company, which produces and distributes peanuts and peanut products, received peanuts and peanut product from the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), a Georgia company that recalled products in January due to concerns of Salmonella contamination.  Despite PCA's effort to remove the affected product from the market and FDA's intervention, Westco/Westcott has refused to recall its products.

"FDA's enforcement action against Westco Fruit and Nuts is an appropriate step toward removing potentially harmful products from the marketplace, especially when, as in this case, a company is unwilling to share information FDA needs to ensure food safety," said Michael Chappell, the FDA's acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. "The FDA uses all appropriate legal means necessary to obtain information and fully investigate firms or individuals who put the health of consumers at risk."  On March 23, 2009, the FDA formally requested Westco/Westcott to initiate a recall of all of its products containing peanuts from PCA because such products may be contaminated with Salmonella. On March 26, 2009, the FDA also issued a formal notice to Westco/Westcott requesting access to certain records concerning the distribution of PCA peanut containing products. The company declined both requests.

Investigations by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified products from PCA's Blakely, Ga., facility as a source of the current Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak. These efforts led to PCA's recall of peanuts and peanut-derived products.  Between Nov. 19, 2008, and Dec. 30, 2008, Westco/Westcott received three shipments of Oil Roasted Salted Redskin Jumbo Peanuts from PCA's Georgia facility.  Westco/Westcott sold these peanuts in various size/packaging configurations and also used them as an ingredient in a variety of mixed nut products and trail mix produced between Nov. 19, 2008, and early February 2009.  On Feb. 9, 2009, New Jersey officials executed an embargo action at Westco/Westcott's distribution facility to prevent the company from further distributing potentially contaminated peanuts or peanut-derived products in the company's inventory.

Last week ABC reported:

A federal official said Moradi [Westco/Westcott] "ran away and hid" when government inspectors showed up at his plant. Moradi acknowledged hiding from FDA inspectors but said it was because they had repeatedly visited him and staked out his plant, and he was frightened.

"I was intimidated," Moradi said. "I was scared of them."

Moradi described Westco as "a tiny little business" with annual sales of a little more than $1 million.

"These people are basically doing it to cover their a**. FDA is doing this to cover their a**," he said. "For seven years, they did not do inspections [at the PCA plant in Georgia] and now at the cost of a tiny little small business they are coming, and they are forcing me and they have no proof. "

The real question is whether if FDA had recall authority if companies would fight the recall and drag out the battle like Westco/Westcott has done?  The reality is that the "voluntary" recall system has worked quite well over the years.  There have been only a handful of folks like Westco/Westcott who refuse to put public health before profits.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting the public to a voluntary recall by Union International Food Company (Union City, Calif.) of the company’s dry spice products. The recall is based on an investigation of an ongoing foodborne illness outbreak of Salmonella Rissen. This investigation is being conducted in collaboration with state health officials in California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The company’s products are distributed in these states and Arizona.

The dry spices being recalled were sold primarily to ethnic restaurants, wholesalers, and retail outlets under the brand names “Lian How” and “Uncle Chen.” At this time, the distribution of products appears confined to the western region of the country.

The recalled products sold at retail outlets include 5-ounce plastic jars of the following Uncle Chen brand dry spices: Whole White Pepper, Ground White Pepper, Whole Black Pepper, and Ground Black Pepper. The Lian How brand products are generally sold to restaurants and wholesalers; a full list of recalled products appears below.

A total of 42 cases of Salmonella Rissen infection have been reported to the CDC by health officials in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Most of the reported cases (33) are in California.

Information, including epidemiologic information and preliminary test results on samples collected, from health authorities in the affected states, links white and black pepper as foods possibly associated with illnesses. The FDA and California officials are inspecting the Union City, Calif. processing facility and have collected environmental and product samples.

The FDA advises consumers who may have purchased these dry spices to dispose of them. Restaurants, retail outlets, and other purchasers should stop using the recalled dry spices immediately and dispose of them. Also, the public is advised to discard any food made with these products and to remove the dry spices from dispensers on consumer tables and at kitchen work stations. All equipment and utensils that have come into contact with these dry spices should be washed, rinsed and sanitized before further use.

Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis. Individuals who are experiencing these symptoms should contact a doctor immediately or go to an emergency room for evaluation.

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Public health officials in Oregon and three other western states have tracked a multi-state outbreak of salmonellosis to ground pepper imported, packaged and distributed by a California company.

Union International Food Co. of Union City, Calif., immediately announced a voluntary recall of ground black pepper and white pepper as well as a number of other products that could have been cross-contaminated in its manufacturing facility.

Dr. William Keene, a senior epidemiologist in the Oregon Department of Human Services Public Health Division, said restaurant and store managers, restaurant suppliers and spice wholesalers are being asked to check their inventories and remove recalled products immediately. The contaminated pepper was packaged under the “Lian How” and “Uncle Chen” labels and sold to restaurant suppliers and markets – much of it going to Chinese and Vietnamese establishments.

Since December, 42 rare Salmonella Rissen infections have been reported in Oregon, California, Washington and Nevada. Public health officials in those states pooled their resources to identify the source.

People were hospitalized in eight of the 42 cases; no deaths have been reported. Oregon had four of the cases, all in metropolitan Portland, a number equal to the average annual number usually reported for the nation.

Keene said the mystery was difficult to solve. “Most people don’t have a great recollection of what kinds of spices they may have eaten, much less the brands – especially for food that they did not themselves cook,” he said.

 

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A year ago, the town of Alamosa was in crisis. Hundreds of people were sick from a Salmonella outbreak. The whole town was drinking bottled water because the city’s public water supply was contaminated.
The head of the Alamosa County Nursing Services, which is responsible for public health in the rural community, had it right from the start when she said: “In the twelve years I’ve been here, we haven’t seen anything like this.”
From onset of the first illness on March 12, 2008 to the city getting permission to allow the public to drink city water again on April 11, 2008, Alamosa experienced the decade’s second worst outbreak of water-borne illness in the United States.
The Salmonella outbreak was blamed for the death of Larry Velasquez, 55, of nearby Romeo, CO. Twenty people were sent to hospitals throughout the region. There were 116 “culture confirmed” cases of Salmonella out of a total of 417 people who got sick.

The town was in a world of hurt because of years of neglect of its water system, but the fixes that might well have prevented the Salmonella outbreak were being made when it occurred. Alamosa's water problems were summed up recently by the Denver Post:

In the aftermath:

• Health investigators discovered an in-ground storage tank was cracked at the corners and had a hole in its side — potential entry points for a strain of salmonella bacteria found in animal feces. A state inspection of Alamosa's water system months before the outbreak failed to include a detailed look at this tank. As a result, its interior had not been physically inspected in 11 years.
• The state canceled a 34-year-old exemption that allowed Alamosa to pump untreated drinking water through a delivery system almost a century old. It also ordered the city to improve inspections of its water system.

• Alamosa opened a treatment plant designed to remove traces of arsenic detected in its water for 13 years. The new plant also disinfects water. Had it been completed months earlier, the city could have avoided the salmonella epidemic.

A year later, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has not pinpointed where salmonella bacteria invaded the water supply of a city of 9,000 people. But crumbling infrastructure is a prime suspect.

After tests detected coliform bacteria in Alamosa's cracked storage tank, the city disconnected it from its drinking-water supply. A 75-year-old water tower was missing bolts and needed repairs on a roof stained by bird droppings.

The city had 50 miles of underground pipes, and "a lot of pipes were World War I vintage. They're old. They're very old," said Steve Gunderson, the health department's water- quality director. "That's the problem with our nation's infrastructure."

More DP coverage of Alamosa a year later can be found here.

 

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 As of 9 PM EDT, Sunday, March 8, 2009, 683 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 46 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (2), Arizona (13), Arkansas (6), California (76), Colorado (17), Connecticut (11), Florida (1), Georgia (6), Hawaii (6), Idaho (17), Illinois (11), Indiana (10), Iowa (3), Kansas (2), Kentucky (3), Louisiana (1), Maine (5), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (48), Michigan (38), Minnesota (42), Missouri (15), Mississippi (7), Montana (2), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (13), New Jersey (23), New York (34), Nevada (6), North Carolina (6), North Dakota (17), Ohio (99), Oklahoma (4), Oregon (13), Pennsylvania (19), Rhode Island (5), South Dakota (4), Tennessee (14), Texas (10), Utah (6), Vermont (4), Virginia (21), Washington (23), West Virginia (2), Wisconsin (5), and Wyoming (2). Additionally, one ill person was reported from Canada.

 

 

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 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta today updated its count of confirmed cases of Salmonella illnesses from peanut butter and peanut-related products. The new number as of March 1 is 677, up 11, with no change in the geography that involves 45 states and Canada. CDC's next scheduled update is March 10th.
The most recent reported illness beginning on February 8, 2009
CDC says the outbreak is continuing, though the numbers of new cases have declined modestly since December. Many recently ill persons report eating peanut butter and other recalled peanut-containing products.
CDC and the federal Food and Drug Administration remain concerned that illness will continue to occur if people eat recalled peanut-containing products that are still on their shelves at home.
The largest recall of peanut products in U.S. history is underway and the list approaching 3,000 separate products that consumers should be either tossing or returning to retailers. The list can be found here.  Nine deaths are blamed on the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak.

 

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"We credit him with going back to the plant and finding the crawl space where the rats were living. There is absolutely no fault being placed on him."

That's what Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, has to say about the state inspector, who claims he knew nothing about the existence of the Peanut Corporation of America processing plant in Plainview, Texas that operated without a state license or any inspections for four years.

"We're not going to fire the inspector, because we think he's doing a good job," McBride said of the state worker responsible for inspecting about 700 food-related companies in 52 counties of the Panhandle and West Texas.

In a story examining how this happened,  reporter Sherry Jacobson writes in the Dallas Morning News that: 

 

The plant sat alongside a major north-south highway at one of the busiest locations in town – across from a massive Wal-Mart distribution center. Thousands of people drove in and out of the center daily.

The company's name was emblazoned on no fewer than four signs out front, including a billboard bearing a picture of a peanut. But apparently nobody thought to tell the state to come and inspect it, city officials said.

Jacobson also reports that flavored peanuts were processed in Plainview and shipped to Georgia may be responsible for the outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium that has sickened 666 and killed nine in 45 states and Canada. 

Check out the rest of the "only in Texas" story here.

 

 

 

 

 

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This cannot be good.

Through Sunday, the number of confirmed cases of Salmonella Typhimurium had reached the biblically scary figure of 666.  Plus the number of states with confirmed cases increased by one to reach 45 with the addition of Montana.  The number of dead remains at nine.

The outbreak, blamed on the now bankrupt Peanut Corporation of America processing facilities in Georgia and Texas, continues, according to the Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).  It has slowed since December, but the most recent onset of the disease is Feb. 3rd.

Federal officials are concerned that illness will continue to occur if people eat recalled peanut-containing products that are still on their shelves at home.

Consumers may use FDA’s online database* to see if foods are on the recall list. Those without Internet access may call 1-800-CDC-INFO (available 24 hours a day, seven days a week) for product recall information. Consumers should also check at home for recalled peanut butter containing products and discard them or return them to retailers for credit.

Here's the latest map of the outbreak:

 

Cases Infected with the Outbreak Strain of Salmonella Typhimurium, United States, by State, as of February 22, 2009 at 9pm ET (n=666)

 

 

 

 

 

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It could be a common peanut farm, or a common peanut processor or some other shared source between the two plants.

Whatever it is,  Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says salmonella with the same genetic fingerprint coming out of facilities in Georgia and Texas means there has to be a common source.

“They have to have the same source,” says Osterholm, “You could have peanuts moving from one source in Georgia that ended up in Texas…There’s a tie there.”

Osterholm, one of the nation's top food safety experts, commented to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after health officials in Colorado linked six cases to the Peanut Corporation of America's Plainview, TX plant; not the Blakely, GA plant that has been the subject of the largest recall of peanut products in U.S. history.

The second source of salmonella complicates the food safety investigation that had centered on a single factory, the Peanut Corp.’s plant in Blakely.

But the six Colorado illnesses were linked to the Texas plant, according to Dr. Ned Calonge, chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. That suggests a common source of contamination, he said.

PCA's Texas plant, which had gone without any licensing or inspections, was closed and its products recalled after the problems at the Blakely facility became public.

The recall began in January with a few hundred products and as of Sunday now stands at 2,591 products from more than 200 companies. Products from both the Georgia and Texas Peanut Corporation of America plants are part of the recall. The recalls have extended (we could call them experts) beyond American borders to Aruba, Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, St. Maarten, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United Kingdom. The recalls also have reached into some surprising products, such as bird food. Here is a complete Peanut Butter and other Peanut Containing Products Recall List.

For more in AJ-C, go here.

 

 

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As we end this week, it's starting to feel like the end of beginning of the Great Peanut outbreak of '08 and '09. The number of confirmed Salmonella Typhimurium cases reached 654, adding a dozen, but all within the 44 impacted states that we've been looking at.  Among those are at least nine deaths.

Meanwhile, the largest recall of peanut products in history continues with nearly 2,400 separate items now on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration list.  Peanut Corporation of America is now entirely closed down as its Virginia blanching operations ceased operation when the company entered bankruptcy court last Friday.

The Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) late today provided this update:

As of 9PM EDT, Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 654 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 44 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (2), Arizona (13), Arkansas (6), California (76), Colorado (16), Connecticut (10), Florida (1), Georgia (6), Hawaii (5), Idaho (16), Illinois (10), Indiana (9), Iowa (3), Kansas (2), Kentucky (3), Maine (5), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (48), Michigan (36), Minnesota (41), Missouri (14), Mississippi (7), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (13), New Jersey (23), New York (30), Nevada (6), North Carolina (6), North Dakota (17), Ohio (94), Oklahoma (4), Oregon (12), Pennsylvania (19), Rhode Island (5), South Dakota (4), Tennessee (13), Texas (9), Utah (6), Vermont (4), Virginia (21), Washington (19), West Virginia (2), Wisconsin (5), and Wyoming (2). Additionally, one ill person was reported from Canada.

 

 

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 Not really unexpected.  Hartford Insurance, however, has $12,000,000 per policy period - perhaps as much $40,000,000 total to cover claims of victims of this tragedy.  Also, manufacturers like Kellogg and King Nut are morally and legally responsible for the products they manufactured and sold.

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Salmonella Typhimurium spread by products from Peanut Corporation of America has killed has killed its ninth victim. Announcement of the death came before the Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations ended its hearing today into the deadly Salmonella outbreak.

The latest death came in hard-hit Ohio where 92 cases of Salmonella Typhimurium have been confirmed. The victim was reported to be a woman from Medina County, Ohio.

By the end of today's hearing, at which Peanut Corporation of America officials invoked the Fifth Amendment, to avoid answering questions from Congress, most observers agreed this outbreak is no accident.

CNN has a good wrap-up here.

 

 

 

 

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Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corporation of America, and Sammy Lightsey, manager of PCA's Blakely, GA plant both just invoked their rights  under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to avoid giving truthful answers to a Congressional panel today in Washington, D.C.

Parnell and Lightsey were asked to respond to explosive emails uncovered by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showing that PCA officials shipped peanut butter they knew to be contaminated with Salmonella and engaged in "lab-shopping" to get the results they wanted. 

Parnell and Lightsey were called to testify after a "victim's panel" of relatives of two of the eight deaths linked to the current outbreak and the father of a 3-year old survivor from Oregon.

The PCA officials appeared before the Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee under subpoena. Parnell, 54, lives near Lynchburg, VA, where PCA is headquartered, with his wife Gloria.

PCA is responsible for the largest recall of peanut products in the history of the United States.  

Please go HERE for the updated list.  Parnell and PCA  are currently the subjects of a federal criminal investigation.  PCA's salmonella-tainted products have made 600 people seriously sick and killed the eight.

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 This just in from the State of Texas:

Peanut Corporation of America voluntarily closed its Plainview plant last night after laboratory tests of sample products from the plant indicated the possible presence of Salmonella in some products.

PCA notified the Texas Department of State Health Services of the findings on Monday.

DSHS officials said it does not appear that any of the implicated products -- peanut meal, granulated peanuts and dry roasted peanuts -- have reached consumers.

The testing was done by a private lab under contract with PCA.

The peanut meal and granulated peanuts had not been shipped out of the Plainview facility. The dry roasted peanuts had been shipped to a distributor but were detained and recalled before further distribution.

It is not yet known if the Salmonella possibly found in the product testing is the same strain of the bacterium implicated in a 43-state outbreak of salmonellosis.

DSHS is developing specific criteria the company must meet before it can resume production and is not aware of any illnesses associated with products from the Plainview facility.

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 The Food and Drug Administration had initially said Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) retested products after getting an initial positive result for Salmonella. The FDA and PCA said the company shipped the goods after follow-up tests came back negative. Today, the FDA amended the "483" and said the company sent out peanut butter, chopped peanuts and peanut meal that had tested positive even before it got back any negative findings.

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How fast is the list of peanut butter products growing?  Today a top Food & Drug Administration (FDA) official was sent up the United States Senate to tell its Agriculture Committee that 1,000 products in 16 categories have been "voluntarily recalled" by 75 companies  that choose poorly when buying peanut butter and/or paste from the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).

But before the FDA brass hat could even get back to the office, THE BIG LIST had grown to include 1,554 products.  If your are signed up for FDA press releases, several an hour roll in at all times during the day.

Reasons for continued growth of  THE BIG LIST  were explained the FDA's spokesman in this way:

Peanut butter is sold by PCA in bulk containers ranging in size from five to 1,700 pounds. The peanut paste is sold in sizes ranging from 35-pound containers to tanker trucks. However, through its investigation, FDA has determined that PCA distributed potentially contaminated products to more than 300 consignee firms, many of whom then further distributed products, for consumption as peanut butter or for use as ingredients in hundreds of different products, such as cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream.

It's hard to believe that PCA's plant in the peanut-land that is Blakely, GA would have so many customers.  While FDA works through those 300 consignee firms, sickness and death continues to be the major characteristics of this outbreak.   The official number sick with Salmonella Typhimurium stands at 575 with eight deaths also associated with the outbreak. PCA is facing both civil and criminal charges.

We have to wonder what this "volunteer recall" looks like from the inside.  FDA negotiates the wording the a press release with each volunteering company.  Is FDA working down just those or line or is anyone attempting to contact all 300 of the consignee firms?  This outbreak must be making heads explode.

 

 

 

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Ever wonder about how the peanut industry works.  We sure did, especially while visiting south Georgia where the Peanut Corporation of America's salmonella-tainted processing plant is located. Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution stepped up with the facts on how things are suppose to work.

The A-J said:

>Georgia peanuts typically are planted in May and spend 140 days on average growing into mature plants. They thrive in Georgia’s sandy soils and subtropical climate, making the state the No. 1 peanut producer in America.

> The plants flower above ground, but they bear fruit underground. To harvest them, farmers use a device known as a digger-shaker-inverter, which slips under the plant, lifts it out of the ground, shakes off the soil and flips it over, so the peanuts are facing up, toward the sun.

> At this point, the insides of the peanut shell, or pod, are 40 percent water. The pods are left to cure in the sun for about three days, during which time the moisture content declines to between 12 to 18 percent.

> Now the farmer uses a combine to separate pod from vine, and harvests the pods. One acre typically produces more than 3,000 pounds of peanuts. The farmer hauls the harvested nuts to a “buying point” to be graded and sold to shellers.

> The shellers haul the peanuts by semi-truck to warehouses or directly to shelling plants, where machines remove the hulls and render the kernel, or what we call the nut. The shellers then sell the shelled peanuts to processors.

> Processors put shelled nuts into roasters. These machines cook peanuts at 250 to 300 degrees for 15 to 30 minutes —- a process that salmonella bacteria cannot survive. Peanut Corp. of America in Blakely is a peanut processor. The Food and Drug Administration report on the company states that “this firm has not established the effectiveness of the temperature, volume or belt speed specific to this roaster to assure it is adequate as a kill step for pathogenic bacteria.”

> Once the roasting is complete, the processor must take care to keep the cooked peanuts segregated from raw ones. They may not come into contact with any raw material, or dust from raw material, or equipment that has been exposed to raw material. Otherwise, the processor risks undoing the purifying work done by the roasters.

More in the A-J can be found here.

 

 

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 In light of shocking revelations disclosed by the FDA about the Peanut Corporation of America’s (PCA) Blakey, GA facility, foodborne illness law firm Marler Clark amended the Federal lawsuit it had filed against PCA to allege punitive damages.  The complaint was filed last week on behalf of Vermont residents Gabrielle and Daryl Meunier, whose son was sickened in the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak tied to peanut butter products manufactured in the PCA plant.

Punitive damages are awarded over and above compensatory damages to punish a negligent party because of wanton, reckless, or malicious acts or omissions. 

“We do not allege punitive damages in most cases,” said attorney Bill Marler.  “Just the most egregious.  In fifteen years of litigating food cases, this is one of the worst examples of corporate irresponsibility I have ever seen.  Not only does the plant appear to have had atrocious practices, but the product that seems to have repeatedly tested positive for Salmonella but was shipped to hospitals, nursing homes and schools regardless.”

The FDA found: 
• 12 positive tests of Salmonella in product manufactured by PCA 
• 4 different strains of Salmonella detected on site in Blakely, GA 
• Failure to maintain equipment, containers and utensils used to convey, hold, and store food in a manner that protects against contamination 
• Failure to perform mechanical manufacturing steps so as to protect food against contamination 
• Failure to store finished food under conditions that would protect against microbial contamination 
• Plant is not constructed in such a manner as to allow ceilings to be kept in good repair 
• Design of equipment and utensils fails to preclude the adulteration of food with contaminants 
• Proper precautions to protect food and food-contact surfaces from contamination with microorganisms cannot be taken because of deficiencies in plant construction and design 
• Devices and fixtures are not designed and constructed to protect against recontamination of clean, sanitized hands
• Failure to conduct cleaning and sanitizing operations for utensils and equipment in a manner that protects against contamination of food 
• Effective measures not being taken to protect against contamination of food on the premises by pests

Salmonella Typhimurium illnesses began appearing in late August 2008.  It wasn’t until January 2009 that the link was found to King Nut peanut butter, and then traced to the Blakely, GA plant.  The plant produced both peanut butter and peanut paste that was then sold to other companies for use in cookies, cakes, ice cream, candy, nutrition bars, and dog treats.  To date 43 states and Canada have reported illnesses.  There have been 501 confirmed illnesses, 125 hospitalizations and eight deaths.  Over 31 million pounds of peanut products have been recalled.  That number is expected to rise.

In a January 27 press release, the industry trade group The American Peanut Council (APC) expressed its “shock and dismay” at the actions of the Peanut Corporation of America, which they said “must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.” They went on to say that “The findings of the FDA report can only be seen as a clear and unconscionable action of one irresponsible manufacturer.” 

 

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 Persons Infected with the Outbreak Strain of Salmonella Typhimurium, United States, by State, September 1, 2008 to January 25, 2009

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 Sixty-seven cases of Salmonella poisoning have been reported in Ohio, the most in any state during a nationwide outbreak linked to peanut butter products.  The Ohio Department of Health announced Friday that four deaths have been reported among the 67 cases and 19 people have been hospitalized.  Across the state, Salmonella has been reported in 26 of 88 counties.  Ohioans who contracted the bacteria have ranged in age from 2 months to 89 years.

The number of ill nationwide has reached nearly 500, over 100 hospitalizations and 11 deaths.  What will this week bring?

 

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 31,000,000 pounds of Peanut Butter Now Recalled

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 We think the best advice is to just stop eating anything you think might contain peanut butter.  It is a small price to pay for avoiding a really nasty bout with Salmonella.   The individual company recalls just keep rolling in.   If you want to check some product against the master list maintained by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, go HERE.

Since Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) does not sell any product used by the major national brands that sell peanut butter in jars for use on your toast or whatever.  For that reason, FDA does not expect the recalls to involve those major brands.   

PCA's peanut factory in Georgia was found to be contaminated with Salmonella Typhimurium and, for the moment, has been shut down.

 

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All the big chains are rolling in with their peanut butter-related recalls.

Kroger is recalling the following ice cream:

• Private Selection Peanut Butter Passion Ice Cream sold in 48-ounce containers with a "Sell by" date of 9-13-2009 under the following UPC Code Number: 0001111054437.
• Private Selection Peanut Butter Passion Ice Cream sold in 56-ounce containers with a "Sell by" date of 8-11-2009 under the following UPC Code Number: 0001111052816.

The ice cream was sold in City Market, Fred Meyer, Fry's, King Soopers, QFC and Smith's stores in the following states: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

All Kroger had to say is here.

 

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Meijer stores and gas stations recalled of two types of its Meijer Brand crackers and two types of Meijer Brand ice cream sold in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. Meijer removed all identified products from its stores and gas stations.

All sell-by dates are impacted by this recall. Specifically, Meijer has recalled the following items:

• Meijer Cheese and Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, UPC #0-41250-56235
• Meijer Toasty Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, UPC #0-41250-56239
• Meijer Peanut Butter and Jelly Ice Cream, UPC #00000007-19283-96635-3
• Meijer Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream, UPC #00000007-19283-96843-2

Like the others, the Meijer recall stems from its concern that its ice cream and crackers contain peanut butter made by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) in its contaminated Georgia plant said to be responsible for the current nationwide salmonella outbreak.

For more, go here.

 

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Perry's Ice Cream is the latest company to recall products made with either peanut butter or paste made at the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) salmonella contaminated plant in Georgia.

Perry's is distributed in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia under the Perry's, Shurfine, and Wegman's brand names.

The recalled products made with PCA peanut sauces include:

• Perry's Premium Peanut Butter Cup Craze Ice Cream 1/2 Pint
• Perry's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream 1.5 QT, 1.75 QT AND 3 GL
• Perry's Peanut Butter Chip Frozen Yogurt 1.5 QT, 1.75 QT and 3 GL
• Perry's Peanut Butter Sundae Crunch Ice Cream Bar Bulk 24 pack
• Perry's Premium Peanut Butter Fudge Ice Cream 1.5 QT and 1.75 QT
• Perry's Perfectly Churned Light Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream 1.5 QT and 1.75 QT
• Perry's Light Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream 1.75 QT
• Shurfine Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream 1.75 QT
• Wegmans Chocolate Nutty Cone Ice Cream 1.75 QT
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream 1.75 QT and Pint
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream 1.75 QT
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Sundae Ice Cream 1.75 QT
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Pretzel Ice Cream 1.75 QT
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Crunch Ice Cream Bar 6 pack
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Candy Sundae Cup Ice Cream 4 pack
• Wegmans Peanut Butter Sundae Cup Ice Cream 4 pack 

King Nut, Kellogg's, Hy-Vee, and now Perry's have all recalled products made with the peanut butter or paste made by PCA that is apparently responsible for almost 500 people getting sick with Salmonella and at least six deaths.   PCA reportedly has another 80 customers out there making stuff with their stuff.    When are those recalls going to be announced?

Check here for the rest of what Perry's has to say.

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 Iowa-based Hy-Vee Inc. today recalled the following products made in its bakery departments because they contain peanut butter that has the potential to be contaminated with salmonella:

• Peanut Butter Cookies,
• Monster Cookies,
• Peanut Butter Reese's Pieces Cookies,
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies,
• Lunchbox Reese's Pieces Cookies,
• Lunchbox Peanut Butter Cookies,
• People Chow Party Mix
• and Assorted Truffle Fudge.

All sell-by dates are included in this recall. The products are sold in various packaging and quantities and have a Hy-Vee price label attached. All items should be destroyed or returned to Hy-Vee for a full refund.

Earlier Saturday, Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), the company that supplies bulk peanut butter to Hy-Vee, issued a recall of the peanut butter ingredient used to make the Hy-Vee bakery products.

King Nut and Kellogg's also have recalls out on their peanut butter products made with PCA ingredients.

Go here for the entire Hy-Vee statement.

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There is bad news today for Blakely, GA.   The town of 5,300, where a majority of the population is Black and incomes run less than half that of the statewide average, is now looking at its Peanut Corporation of America plant ceasing production due to Salmonella contamination.

In an expanded recall notice, the company said:

"PCA is immediately stopping all production at the Blakely, Georgia facility and notifying its customers to recall and retain all affected product produced during these dates at this plant.

"That includes all peanut butter produced on or after August 8, 2008 and peanut paste produced on or after September 26, 2008 at the Georgia facility. The peanut butter being recalled is sold by PCA in bulk packaging in containers ranging in size from five to 1,700 pounds. The peanut paste is sold in sizes ranging from 35 pound containers to tanker containers.

The company on January 13, 2009 previously announced the recall of 21 lots of peanut butter produced on or after July 1, 2008."

Two of PCA's biggest customers, King Nut and Kellogg's, have also recalled their products.  According to FDA, the Blakely peanut plant supplies up to 85 companies with products.

For the complete press release from PCA, go here.

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Very early Saturday morning, Kellogg Company recalled certain Austin® and Keebler® branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers and select snack-size packs of Famous Amos® Peanut Butter Cookies and Keebler® Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies because the products have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.

Products included in the recall were produced on or after July 1, 2008:

• Austin® Quality Foods Cheese Crackers with Peanut Butter - all sizes
• Austin® Quality Foods Cheese & Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers - all
• sizes
• Austin® Quality Foods Mega Stuffed Cheese Crackers with Peanut Butter -
• all sizes
• Austin® Quality Foods PB & J Cracker Sandwiches - all sizes
• Austin® Quality Foods Super Snack Pack Sandwich Crackers
• Austin® Quality Foods Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers - all
• sizes
• Austin® Quality Foods Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter - all sizes
• Austin® Quality Foods Reduced Fat Cheese & Peanut Butter Sandwich
• Crackers
• Austin® Quality Foods Reduced Fat Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter
• Sandwich Crackers
• Austin® Quality Foods Cookie/Cracker Pack
• Austin® Quality Foods Variety Pack
• Keebler® Cheese & Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers - all sizes
• Keebler® Toast & PB'n J Flavored Sandwich Crackers - all sizes
• Keebler® Toast & Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers - all sizes
• Famous Amos® Peanut Butter Cookies (2- and 3-ounce)
• Keebler® Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies (2.5-ounce)

With 2007 sales of nearly $12 billion, Kellogg Company is one of 85 companies that purchases peanut butter products from Peanut Corporation of America's Georgia plant that has been producing Salmonella-tainted products.  Look for Kellogg's early action to be followed by others very soon.

For more from Battle Creek, go here.

 

 

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Connecticut says its found the first unopened tub of King Nut peanut butter definitively found contaminated with Salmonella Type B.
And the state has sent its Consumer Protection Commissioner, Jerry Farrell, Jr., into the battle.
“This is the first unopened tub of King Nut peanut butter found in the country that is definitively identified as being tainted with salmonella,” Farrell said. “My office just received the results from the Connecticut Department of Public Health Laboratory confirming the presence of Salmonella Type B in an unopened tub. This provides further evidence that some lots of King Nut brand peanut butter delivered to food service accounts are responsible for a recent outbreak of salmonella infections in consumers. 

For more from the Yankee state, go here.

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In its update today on the investigation into the ongoing Salmonella outbreak, the U.S. Drug Administration acknowledged:

In many instances, the peanut butter and peanut paste manufactured by PCA (the Georgia plant implicated in the outbreak) are further distributed to manufacturers to be used as ingredients in many products, including cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream.

What does this mean?

According to the AP, is that the FDA is expanding its investigation of peanut products in a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds and killed at least six.  In addition, the FDA is notifying 30 to 85 companies that bought peanut butter or peanut paste from a Georgia facility to test their products and asked to consider halting sales.  A list of companies that may be using the contaminated peanut butter has yet to appear on FDA website.

 

 

 

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 From A Company Press Release As Distributed by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Battle Creek, MI -- January 14, 2009 -- Kellogg Company today announced it has taken the precautionary measure of putting a hold on Austin® and Keebler® branded Toasted Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Crackers, Cheese and Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, and Peanut Butter-Chocolate Sandwich Crackers.

FDA and other regulatory agencies have indicated that Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) is the focus of their investigation concerning a recent Salmonella outbreak thought to be caused by tainted peanut butter. PCA is one of several peanut paste suppliers that the company uses in its Austin® and Keebler® branded peanut butter sandwich crackers.

Kellogg Company's investigation has not indicated any concerns, nor has the Company received any consumer illness complaints about these products.

Nonetheless, Kellogg Company is taking precautionary measures including putting a hold on any inventory in its control, removing product from retail store shelves, and encouraging customers and consumers to hold and not eat these products until regulatory officials complete their investigation of PCA and Kellogg provides further information as to the resolution of this issue.

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The CDC reports that 410 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 43 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (1), Arizona (8), Arkansas (3), California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (6), Georgia (5), Hawaii (1), Idaho (10), Illinois (5), Indiana (4), Iowa (1), Kansas (2), Kentucky (3), Maine (4), Maryland (7), Massachusetts (40), Michigan (20), Minnesota (30), Missouri (8), Mississippi (1), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (10), New Jersey (13), New York (12), Nevada (6), North Carolina (1), North Dakota (10), Ohio (53), Oklahoma (2), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (12), Rhode Island (4), South Dakota (2), Tennessee (9), Texas (5), Utah (3), Vermont (4), Virginia (17), Washington (11), West Virginia (2), Wisconsin (3), and Wyoming (2). Among the 388 persons with dates available, illnesses began between September 3 and December 31, 2008, with most illnesses beginning after October 1, 2008. Patients range in age from <1 to 98 years; 48% are female. Among persons with available information, 18% were hospitalized and the infection may have contributed to three deaths.
 

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The CDC reports that 410 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 43 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (1), Arizona (8), Arkansas (3), California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (6), Georgia (5), Hawaii (1), Idaho (10), Illinois (5), Indiana (4), Iowa (1), Kansas (2), Kentucky (3), Maine (4), Maryland (7), Massachusetts (40), Michigan (20), Minnesota (30), Missouri (8), Mississippi (1), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (10), New Jersey (13), New York (12), Nevada (6), North Carolina (1), North Dakota (10), Ohio (53), Oklahoma (2), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (12), Rhode Island (4), South Dakota (2), Tennessee (9), Texas (5), Utah (3), Vermont (4), Virginia (17), Washington (11), West Virginia (2), Wisconsin (3), and Wyoming (2). Among the 388 persons with dates available, illnesses began between September 3 and December 31, 2008, with most illnesses beginning after October 1, 2008. Patients range in age from <1 to 98 years; 48% are female. Among persons with available information, 18% were hospitalized and the infection may have contributed to three deaths.

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The CDC reports that 410 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 43 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (1), Arizona (8), Arkansas (3), California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (6), Georgia (5), Hawaii (1), Idaho (10), Illinois (5), Indiana (4), Iowa (1), Kansas (2), Kentucky (3), Maine (4), Maryland (7), Massachusetts (40), Michigan (20), Minnesota (30), Missouri (8), Mississippi (1), Nebraska (1), New Hampshire (10), New Jersey (13), New York (12), Nevada (6), North Carolina (1), North Dakota (10), Ohio (53), Oklahoma (2), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (12), Rhode Island (4), South Dakota (2), Tennessee (9), Texas (5), Utah (3), Vermont (4), Virginia (17), Washington (11), West Virginia (2), Wisconsin (3), and Wyoming (2). Among the 388 persons with dates available, illnesses began between September 3 and December 31, 2008, with most illnesses beginning after October 1, 2008. Patients range in age from <1 to 98 years; 48% are female. Among persons with available information, 18% were hospitalized and the infection may have contributed to three deaths.

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 Our thanks go out to the Minnesota Department of Health for the contents of this 1,300th Salmonella blog entry:

 

The Minnesota Departments of Agriculture and Health today announced that laboratory analyses have confirmed a genetic match between the strains of Salmonella bacteria found in a container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter and the strains of bacteria associated with 30 illnesses in Minnesota and nearly 400 illnesses around the country.

MDA lab tests conducted last week discovered Salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound package of King Nut peanut butter collected from a long-term care facility associated with one of the reported illnesses.  The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) issued a product advisory on Friday alerting institutions that may have received the product. MDA and MDH scientists performed additional testing this weekend to verify the connection between the contaminated product and the illnesses. 

State officials initially discovered the contaminated product through product testing conducted after MDH epidemiological evidence and an investigation by the Rapid Response Team implicated King Nut creamy peanut butter as a likely source of Salmonella infections in Minnesota residents. In the product advisory issued Friday, state officials urged establishments who may have the product on hand to avoid serving it, pending further instructions as the investigation progresses.

For more, go here.

MDA is holding a press conference at 3:30 p.m. Central Time.

 

 

 

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Minnesota Department of Health announces late Friday that the have linked thirty illnesses ( and a death) to the consumption of King Nut Peanut Butter (and Parnell's Pride?). There is nothing on the CDC website or other State Health Department sites naming names - yet. On Saturday King Nut and the FDA jointly release a recall notification, but King Nut blames the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) for its problem. PCA’s lawyers write a press release that tries to deny as much as possible.

So, what is next? Here are a few ideas (not in any particular order) that the companies involved and the government should do Monday morning:

1. Make sure ALL product is promptly recalled;

2. Do not destroy any documents;

3. The companies should pay the medical bills and all related expenses of the innocent victims and their families;

4. The companies should pay the cost of all related Health Department, CDC and FDA investigations;

5. Provide all bacterial and viral testing of all recalled product and any other tested product (before and after recall);

6. Release all inspection reports on the plants by any Governmental Entity or Third-party Auditor;

7. Release all Salmonella safety precautions taken by either King Nut or Peanut Corporation of America - especially after the 2007 Salmonella Peanut Butter Outbreak;

8. Provide the public with the Epidemiological investigation (with names redacted), so it is clear who knew what and when about the likely source of the outbreak; and,

9. Show the public what is being done to prevent the next outbreak.

Taking these steps will go a long way in convincing us that food safety and consumer confidence is of primary importance both to the companies and the government.

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The Cleveland Plain Dealer is the hometown newspaper for King Nut, the Solon, Ohio based snack and airline food company at the center of the nationwide Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak.

It has a good wrap-up today of the events that have transpired since late Friday after Minnesota health officials linked the outbreak King Nut brand creamy peanut butter.

The outbreak has made almost 400 people in 42 states sick and may be responsible for one death. Two brands of peanut butter have now been linked to the outbreak and recalled by their makers.

The Plain Dealer reports:

On Friday, the Minnesota Department of Health said preliminary laboratory testing found salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter. The tests have not linked it to the type of salmonella in the national outbreak, but additional results are expected early next week.

The container was found in the kitchen of a nursing facility, leaving it open to cross-contamination from another source, according to the peanut butter's manufacturer, Peanut Corp. of America in Lynchburg, Va.

The company did not say where the nursing facility was located or when the contaminated product was discovered.

King Nut Cos.  Saturday  asked customers to stop distributing all peanut butter under the King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands with a lot code that begins with the numeral "8." Both brands are made by PCA.

For more, go here.

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 From the pages of efoodalert - Based on information posted by the three states, and on media reports across the United States, the following 29 states have reported confirmed cases of Salmonella Typhimurium that are linked genetically to the national outbreak.

• Arkansas: 3 cases 
• Arizona: 8 cases
• California: 53 cases in 10 counties; 15 or more victims hospitalized
• Colorado: 9 cases; 1 victim hospitalized
• Connecticut: 6 cases
• Georgia: 5 cases; 1 victim hospitalized
• Iowa: 1 case
• Idaho: 10 cases
• Illinois: 4 cases
• Maine: 2 cases
• Massachusetts: 39 cases
• Maryland: 7 cases
• Michigan: 20 cases in 13 counties; 7 victims hospitalized
• Minnesota: 30 cases; 11 victims hospitalized and 1 possible death
• Missouri: 8 cases; 4 victims hospitalized
• North Carolina: 1 case
• North Dakota: 7 cases
• New Hampshire: 10 cases
• Nevada: 1 or more cases (state declined to release information on number of cases)
• New Jersey: 13 cases (unclear whether suspect or confirmed)
• New York: 1 or more cases on Long Island
• Ohio: 50 cases
• Pennsylvania: 12 cases in 10 counties
• Rhode Island: 3 cases
• Tennessee: 9 cases; 1 or more victims hospitalized
• Texas: 5 cases
• Vermont: 3 cases
• Virginia: 12 cases; 7 victims hospitalized
• Wisconsin: 3 cases

These 29 states account for 335 of the 389 cases of Salmonella Typhimuriuminfection, assuming that the New Jersey cases have been confirmed.

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 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),  the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) all have tremendous public relations programs  to communicate with the public.

However, once or twice a year, the federal government's three top food safety agencies appear more as three blind mice.    The first official word from the mice on the ongoing multistate outbreak of human infections due to Salmonella Typhimurium has now appeared on CDC's website.  First public announcement about this outbreak came from the State of Ohio.

CDC did not add much  to what was already known.  Here's the money quote:

As of Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 388 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 42 states. Among the 372 persons with dates available, illnesses began between September 3 and December 29, 2008, with most illnesses beginning after October 1, 2008. Patients range in age from <1 to 103 years; 48 percent are female. Among persons with available information,18 percent were hospitalized.

CDC and the other mice say they are "vigorously working to identify the specific contaminated product."  CDC's next update on the outbreak that dates back to last October will be on January 15th.  (A list of the 42 states would be nice to see.)

There's not much else now on CDC's website, but go here for it.

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The nationwide salmonella outbreak may have killed a person in Minnesota. A health department spokesman in Minnesota says an elderly woman had the infection when she died, but it's not clear that salmonella was the cause.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the outbreak has struck 42 states and made nearly 400 people ill. The CDC has not yet released the list of states or determined which foods may have caused people to become sick (expected in the next few hours). However, health officials in Illinois, North Dakota, Ohio, Georgia, Minnesota and California have confirmed cases. Ohio and California reported the most, with 51 cases each.

 

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 The CDC reports that an outbreak of Salmonella food poisoning has made 388 people sick across 42 states, sending 18 percent of them to the hospital, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to trace the source of the outbreak, which began in September. The Department of Agriculture, state health officials and the Food and Drug Administration are also involved.  The CDC said poultry, cheese and eggs are the most common source of this particular strain, known as Salmonella Typhimurium.

The reported incidence of Salmonellaillnesses is about 14 cases per each 100,000 persons (MMWR Weekly, 2006), amounting to approximately 30,000 confirmed cases of salmonellosis yearly in the U.S. (CDC, 2005, October 13).  In 2005, just over 36,000 cases were reported from public health laboratories across the nation, representing a 12 percent decrease compared with the previous decade, but a 1.5 percent increase over 2004 (CDC, 2007).

As only about 3 percent of Salmonella cases are officially reported nationwide, and many milder cases are never diagnosed, the true incidence is undoubtedly much higher (Mead, 1999).  The CDC estimates that 1.4 million cases occur annually (CDC, 2005, October 13).  Approximately 600 deaths are caused by Salmonella infections in the U.S. every year, accounting for 31 percent of all food-related deaths (CDC, 2005, October 13; MMWR Weekly, 2001).

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The Ohio Department of Health says it is investigating the multi-state Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak.

Ohio health officials say they are participating in a nationwide investigation to try to identify the contaminated food vehicle for an outbreak of salmonellosis that has been going on since last October.

Ohio ranks second in the nation for number of cases. Fifty cases have been identified in Ohio residents. Cases match each other by their DNA fingerprint, and thus appear to have a common origin.

The department says Ohioans can protect themselves by avoiding Salmonella infection. This involves taking care when handling raw meat, washing hands between food preparation and tending to infants or small children, cooking meat dishes
thoroughly and not eating raw or undercooked meat.

For more information from Ohio health officials, go here.

 

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 The United Kingdom is warning its consumers about salmonella in ready-to-eat herbs.  According to the Mail Online:

 

In a study of packets of fresh herbs Government scientists found the food poisoning bug in dangerous levels in a small proportion of packets.

Fresh basil grown in Israel is thought to have been the cause of 32 cases of an unusual strain of salmonella in England and Wales last year, the researchers said.

The Health Protection Agency and Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services sampled 3,760 packets of herbs between May and October last year and found a small proportion to be contaminated with unsafe levels of salmonella senftenberg.

As a result of the study, consumers in England are being advised to carefully wash all ready to eat herbs. For more, go here.

 

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SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Nov. 28, 2008
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd, MailStop E-90, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A

 

 

On June 6, 2007, a cluster of four human Salmonella serotype I 4,5,12:i:-* infections sharing a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern was identified by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and reported to PulseNet.^†Initial investigations conducted during June--September 2007 by state and local health departments in collaboration with CDC did not identify a source of infection. This report summarizes the results of subsequent investigations of the outbreak, which determined that 401 cases of salmonellosis occurred in 41 states during 2007, with 32% of ill persons hospitalized. A multistate case-control study conducted during October 3--13 indicated that illness was associated with consumption of Banquet® brand frozen, not-ready-to-eat pot pies (odds ratio = 23.6; p<0.001). Further investigation determined that 77% of patients who ate these pies cooked them in microwave ovens and that consumer confusion regarding microwaving instructions might have resulted in a failure to cook the product properly. A voluntary recall was issued by the manufacturer (ConAgra Foods Inc., Omaha, Nebraska) on October 11, 2007, for all nine brands of pot pies produced at the implicated plant (plant A). The outbreak strain was isolated from 13 samples of unopened Banquet pot pies collected from the homes of patients. This outbreak highlights the need to cook not-ready-to-eat frozen foods thoroughly; these products should be clearly labeled as requiring complete cooking, and cooking instructions should be validated to account for variability in microwave wattage and common misconceptions among consumers regarding the nature of not-ready-to-eat foods.

 

 

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 One item in the consumer news wrap-up published by the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday caught our eye. It was this:

"A failure by government agencies to coordinate their investigation into a U.S. salmonella outbreak may have put the public at risk and caused needless harm to the tomato industry, according to the Produce Safety Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University. Salmonella sickened more than 1,400 people from April through August, with health officials initially citing tomatoes as a cause but later saying tainted jalapeno peppers were the key cause. Two federal agencies and three state agencies announced the outbreak of illnesses over four days "with significant variations in facts and messages," the report found.

We found the Produce Safety Project's (PSP) website here and noted its key findings:

PSP "calls on federal public-health officials to follow through on their commitment to undertake a thorough and comprehensive post-mortem analysis of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak and report their findings publicly.  The analysis should focus on:

• The need for preventive safety standards for fresh produce.
• Reforms needed to address organizational and capacity shortcomings in the public-health system's response to foodborne-illness outbreaks at the local, state and federal levels.
• Procedures and systems needed to ensure accurate risk communication to the public and affected industries.

More from the report's summary follows here.

 

 

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A single kitchen that supplies food to 29 preschools operated by the Volunteers of America of Greater Los Angeles has put up to 900 people at risk of exposure to salmonella.

A salmonella outbreak linked to the kitchen has sickened more than two dozen children and adults in the Los Angeles area. Among the sick, 15 were sent to hospitals for treatment, according to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department (LACPHD).

As of Thursday, there were 25 confirmed cases in the salmonella outbreak.

LACPHD  officials inspected the kitchen, which voluntarily closed at the end of last week and reopened Tuesday, said Bob Pratt, president of the Volunteers of America of Greater Los Angeles.

Dassey said public health investigators were still in the process of determining the extent of the outbreak, which seemed to grow by the hour.

For more, go here.

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Well, it's been a week since we learned that consumers were being blamed for a multi-state salmonella outbreak involving under-cooked chicken.  Today, Wisconsin stepped forward with its perspective on the foul situation. 

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services said four Wisconsin cases are part of a multi-state Salmonella outbreak that has caused 32 illnesses in 12 states.   The department also said:

Since August, four Wisconsin residents have had laboratory-confirmed Salmonella infections that match the DNA fingerprints of the national outbreak strain. The four Wisconsin residents reported consuming frozen chicken products. Health officials will continue to monitor for additional cases.

Milwaukee County	Adult male
Ozaukee County	Adult male
Washington County	School-age male Adult female

For more, go here.

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Bad, bad, bad consumers!  Don't you fools know that if you pick up the wrong box in the grocery store coolers with thousands of products that can be microwaved that some smaller percentage must be oven-baked?  Can't you read the small print on the boxes?  What's the matter with you?

That's what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is telling  32 people in 12 states were sickened with salmonella poisoning after eating precooked, frozen chicken dinners.   FDA says the victims didn't follow the instructions that said to heat the meal in the oven, and instead used the microwave.

Carlota Medus, an epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health, told the New York Times: "The issue is that people think it’s cooked and it just needs to be heated up. Microwave cooking for something that has to be cooked isn’t always a good idea."   Minnesota is one of the 12 states with victims.  The others have not been named.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture also issued an alert on the salmonella outbreak, which was discovered by Minnesota's testing.  It can be found here.

Minnesota has linked the outbreak to contaminated chicken Kiev and cordon bleu made by Milford Valley Farms.

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Eight months after the town's public water supply was found to be responsible for a salmonella outbreak that made more 400 people sick and contributed to one person's death, Alamosa, Colorado has reached an agreement with the state Department of Health and Environment for regular testing.

Denver's Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate, says the town and the state agreed last week to a plan that will see Alamosa chlorinating its drinking water and using a sensitive test for organisms.   The plan  stems from the outbreak of salmonella this spring that spread through the city's tap water system.

Before the outbreak, the city did not chlorinate its water, but now agreed to do so at the rate of 1 to 2 milligrams per liter. 

The agreement also calls for at least 10 tests per month of its water for a bacteria found in feces and at least 10 tests every three months for any organisms in the water.

Alamosa's new water treatment plant was in the works before the outbreak occurred.   It was constructed primarily because of the town's need to control levels of naturally occurring arsenic.

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If you come down with something with the word "Poona" in it, somehow it seems a whole lot more serious.  However, at least one Canadian health expert is saying you get Salmonella Poona and you get over it.   However serious it gets, health experts in Canada are saying North America is experiencing an outbreak of another rare strain of Salmonella, this one known as "Poona."

And Canada says there are 48 confirmed cases in the United States.

The Canwest News Service reports:

Canadian health officials are investigating a potential North American outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella called Salmonella Poona.

The Public Health Agency says it is working closely with local and U.S. health authorities to determine the origin of the food-borne illness that has sickened 48 people in the United States.

In Canada there have been six cases in Manitoba, Quebec and Nova Scotia with the same "genetic fingerprint" as the strain in the U.S. and 14 other suspected cases in Ontario. 

No one has been hospitalized so far, the agency said in a news release.

"We don't yet know the source of the outbreak. (The investigation) is very preliminary right now," said Philippe Brideau, with the Public Health Agency.

Brideau said for most people the risk from Salmonella Poona is very low.

"It's a relatively rare strain around the world but it seems that people just get sick and move on," he said, adding that there is an average of 20 cases a year in Canada of the particular strain.

Saintpaul was the last rare strain of Salmonella to be responsible for a North American-wide outbreak.  Tomatoes and peppers grown in Mexican were implicated in that Salmonella outbreak.

For more from Canwest, go here.

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For the third time in three months, the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) in Amarillo, Texas is closed--this time  at  least  seven  confirmed cases of salmonella are linked to  the restaurant.

With its location just off Interstate 40 at Western, the IHOP could well be sending a lot more sick people down the road.

Since we don't have a whole lot more on this one yet, how about the history of IHOP on its 50th birthday!

IHOP AT 50

1958 -- Brothers Al and Jerry Lapin open the first International House of Pancakes restaurant in Toluca Lake, Calif.

1961 -- The Lapins sell the first International House of Pancakes franchise to an investor from Kentucky.

1961 -- The company of pancake restaurant chains goes public. It's one of the first-ever restaurant companies to sell stock.

1963 -- International House of Pancakes adopts the corporate name International Industries as it begins to acquire several brands, including Orange Julius and The Original House of Pies, as well as non-restaurant businesses.

1966 -- Al Lapin Jr. buys brother Jerry Lapin's half of the business after the two have different ideas about the future of the company.

1972 -- Al Lapin Jr. loses control of the company as International Industries struggles.

1972 -- The acronym IHOP first appears as part of a marketing campaign.

1975 -- International Industries folds, and IHOP reorganizes as a business entity.

1979 -- The last of the iconic IHOP A-frame franchise restaurants is built.

1979 -- Swiss company Wienerwald Holdings purchases a majority interest in IHOP.

1982 -- Wienerwald files for bankruptcy; IHOP is taken over by another Swiss company called Svido.

1984 -- IHOP introduces the popular Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity breakfast on its menus.

1987 -- Then-IHOP CFO Richard K. Herzer and a team of investors purchase IHOP and begin rebuilding the company.

1992 -- The 500th IHOP restaurant opens for business.

1993 -- The average sales per IHOP restaurant exceeds $1 million for the first time.

1998 -- IHOP systemwide sales reach $1 billion for the first time.

2001 -- The 1,000th IHOP opens.

2002 -- Julia A. Stewart is appointed president of IHOP.

2007 -- IHOP acquires Applebee's International Inc. for a reported $2.1 billion.

2008 -- IHOP opens its 1,361st restaurant and celebrates its 50th year of serving pancakes.
 

 

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Thirteen people -- nine in Washington and four in Oregon -- have been infected with Salmonella Typhimurium from eating alfalfa sprouts.

The illnesses have been traced back to Sprouters Northwest, Inc in Kent, WA, which has voluntarily recalled the product and stopped distributing it. Consumers are advised not to purchase or eat any Sprouters Northwest products containing alfalfa sprouts, and to discard or return any of the products they may have in their homes.

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From MMWR Weekly Report, August 29, 2008:

 

 

On May 22, 2008, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) notified CDC about four persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul strains that were indistinguishable from each other by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and 15 other persons with Salmonella infections whose isolates had not yet been characterized. In the following weeks, cases continued to be reported, and the outbreak expanded to include 43 states, the District of Columbia (Figure 1), and Canada. This report is an interim summary of results from seven epidemiologic studies, traceback investigations, and environmental investigations related to the outbreak. Further data collection and analyses are ongoing. As of August 25, 2008, a total of 1,442 persons had been reported infected with the outbreak strain. At least 286 persons have been hospitalized, and the infection might have contributed to two deaths. The outbreak began late in April 2008, and most persons became ill in May or June. The outbreak appears to be over; however, CDC and state health departments are continuing to conduct surveillance for cases of infection with the outbreak strain. Preliminary epidemiologic and microbiologic results to date support the conclusion that jalapeño peppers were a major vehicle by which the pathogen was transmitted and serrano peppers also were a vehicle; tomatoes possibly were a vehicle, particularly early in the outbreak. Contamination of produce items might have occurred on the farm or during processing or distribution; the mechanism of contamination has not been determined. These findings indicate that additional measures are needed to enhance food safety and reduce illnesses from produce that is consumed raw.

 

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The Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak may be winding down, but it is not over.   The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today updated its publicly available data for the first time since last Friday.   The outbreak, which began last April 16, continues this month with August 8 being the latest date for someone becoming a confirmed case.

The total number of confirmed cases during those four months now stands at 1,434.   CDC says 273 of the confirmed cases were treated at hospitals and Salmonella Saintpaul contributed to two deaths.  We continue to remind readers that various models for figuring the number of "unconfirmed" cases would now translate into 54,492.

Last year during this same period, CDC says there were a mere 18 Salmonella Saintpaul cases recorded in the USA.

Since we have not done so in some time, we are providing the complete CDC update.  From this point forward, its your tax dollars at work!

Continue Reading...

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We've known since we published, Minnesota's "Team Diarrhea" Cracks Salmonella Saintpaul Mystery, that all 27 of the Gopher State's Salmonella Saintpaul victims ate at the same restaurant.   Now we know, from KAAL-TV 6, the name and location of that restaurant. 

It was The Good Earth in Roseville, MN. Accoding to Austin, MN television station:

State health officials said The Good Earth restaurant in Roseville was very unlucky. They did nothing wrong and it was pure chance they received a shipment of tainted jalapeno peppers.

Between June 13 and June 22, 27 people reported cases of salmonella to the Department of Health. Investigators were able to determine 20 were patrons and seven were Good Earth employees.

Go here for more.

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Two and half weeks ago, someone was still getting sick from Salmonella Saintpaul.  According to today's report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the latest onset date for the illness was July 19th.  During much of the outbreak, the latest onset date was as recently as ten days ago or less.   So, it's possible the outbreak is playing itself out.

Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed cases reached 1,348, including 262 who required hospital stays.   Salmonella Saintpaul also contributed to the deaths of two Texas men.  CDC reports on the sources of the outbreak stating the following:

These epidemiological studies indicate that more than one food vehicle is involved in this outbreak. No one food item can explain the entire outbreak. By themselves, tomatoes cannot explain the entire outbreak, nor do jalapeño peppers explain all the clusters. Although rare, there have been outbreaks in the past in which more than one food source has been implicated.

For the complete CDC report, go here.

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The first lawsuit stemming from the Salmonella outbreak that has sickened 1319 people, hospitalized 255 and caused the death of 2 in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada was filed today in the District Court of Montezuma County, Colorado.

The complaint was filed on behalf of Delores, Colorado resident Brian Grubbs against Wal-Mart and an unknown supplier, referred to as “John Doe”.

The lawsuit states that the Grubbs family purchased raw jalapeno peppers from the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Cortez, Colorado in late June, and that Mr. Grubbs ate them over the next week. He fell ill on July 3, experiencing nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, and diarrhea. Over the next several days, Mr. Grubbs’ condition continued to worsen; he lost a great deal of weight, was severely dehydrated, and could not walk without assistance. His wife drove him to the Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock, New Mexico, where he was treated for dehydration and decreased kidney and liver functions. Samples taken at the time later revealed that he was positive for salmonella Saintpaul.

“Consumers believe that retailers like Wal-Mart know the quality and safety of products they sell,” said William Marler, the Grubbs’ attorney. “Retailers benefit from that trust, and must be held accountable for the products they sell.”

The Grubbs family still possessed some of the peppers that Mr. Grubbs had consumed, and provided them to authorities. Tests revealed that the peppers were tainted with salmonella Saintpaul, and provided one of the first reported physical links in the three-month-long search for the source of the outbreak.

Salmonellosis illnesses from the Saintpaul strain began showing up in Texas and New Mexico in late April, and in early June the CDC linked those illnesses to raw tomatoes and issued consumer warnings. Advisories were widened to include foods commonly consumed with tomatoes, such as peppers, cilantro, and onions, then narrowed to raw jalapeno and serrano peppers. On July 30, the FDA confirmed the presence of salmonella Saintpaul at a farm in Mexico, both in irrigation water and on produce. The investigation is continuing. (A full timeline of the outbreak can be found here.)

Salmonella is a bacterium that causes one of the most common intestinal illnesses in the US: salmonellosis infection. It can be present in uncooked or undercooked meat, poultry, eggs, or unpasturized dairy products, as well as other foods contaminated during harvest, production, or packaging. Symptoms can begin 6 to 72 hours from consumption, and include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, nausea, and/or vomiting. In most victims, symptoms will lessen over a period of 10 days to 2 weeks, although it may take months for body functions to return to normal. In others, the infection can lead to more severe illnesses such as typhoid fever and bacteremia. There are many strains of the bacterium; salmonella Saintpaul is a fairly common serotype, but the specific subtype, or fingerprint, associated with this outbreak is very rare.

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They managed to do it with a little drum roll before a Congressional committee.   The smoking hot pepper has been captured across the Rio Grande in Mexico.   Here's a bit of what the Washington Post reported just a short time ago:

Investigators discovered the Salmonella saintpaul strain in irrigation water and serrano peppers on a farm in Mexico, where jalapeno peppers are also grown.

"We have a smoking gun it appears," said Lonnie King, a director at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Food and Drug Administration, which earlier issued a warning about jalapeno peppers, is now warning consumers also to avoid raw serrano peppers grown and packed in Mexico.

Here's how the dots were connected:

The farm where the contaminated water was found grows only jalapeno and Serrano peppers. It supplied a packing facility in Mexico that also did business with Agricola Zaragosa, the McAllen, Tex., distributor where FDA inspectors found tainted jalapeno peppers last week. The farm and the packing facility are located in Nuevo Leon, a state in northeastern Mexico. A portion of Nuevo Leon borders Texas.

FDA is also awaiting the results of samples collected from a different farm in Tamaulipas, Mexico  It  supplied the tainted jalapeno peppers found at Agricola Zaragosa,  It's possible that the contamination occurred not at that farm but at a distribution center.

Both Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas are separated from the U.S. only by the Rio Grande and the farms are easily accessbile to U.S. distributors.

Check out the entire Wapo story here.

 

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As we go into the weekend, we know more than at anytime since the start of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak.  We know the source of the outbreak is jalapeño peppers grown, harvested or packed in Mexico.  We know jalapeño and Serrano peppers grown in the USA are safe to eat, be they raw, canned, pickled or cooked.

We know the outbreak is not over, but its winding down.   The latest onset of the illness was July 10th.   That date bumped forward by a week during the last couple of days.  The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) explained how responsibility has been pinned on Mexico.   According to FDA:

Additional traceback information obtained this week indicates that the Agricola Zaragoza plant in McAllen, Texas—from where the positive jalapeño pepper sample was taken—have determined that the Texas plant was not the original source of the contamination.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) said the number of confirmed cases as of late July 24 stood at 1,294.  CDC said 31 people became ill between July 1 and 11.  The outbreak falls just five states short of covering the entire "Lower 48" states.  We think the CDC's epidemic curve shows the outbreak in its winding down stage.


Continue Reading...

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Did one state with its act together on food poisoning cases crack the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak when all the expertise of the federal government ended up looking like the keystone cops?    The Minneapolis Star-Tribune in a story published on its website tonight, says the answer to that question would be: "Yah, sure! You betcha!"

In 'Team Diarrhea' called in to crack salmonella case, Star Tribune health reporters Josephine Marcotty and Maura Lerner, write:

In less than two weeks, Minnesota Department of Health investigators traced the source of a mysterious salmonella outbreak that had stumped federal health officials for two months and sickened more than 1,200 people in 43 states and Canada.

And in explaining how it all happened, they report:

A gee-whiz state lab, investigators dubbed "Team Diarrhea" and a unique approach to sleuthing illness contributed to the breakthrough.

The job the Gopher State did brought this comment:

What happened in Minnesota should be the norm," said Mike Osterholm, University of Minnesota foodborne illness expert and an adviser to state and federal health agencies. "They did it quickly and they did it effectively and they were able to trace back what nobody else was able to trace back."

As for how it happened, read the story.  Everybody who has been involved in this long Salmonella Saintpaul saga will be doing the same.

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Jalapeno Peppers  distributed since June 30th by Agricola Zaragoza, Inc. to customers in Georgia and Texas are being recalled because sampling by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) found these Jalapenos are contaminated with the same strain of Salmonella Saintpaul that is responsible for the current Salmonella outbreak.

The Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak has contributed to two deaths and sickened over 1,200 people in 43 states and the District of Columbia.

The Mexican-grown Jalapeno Peppers being recalled were shipped in 35lb. plastic crates and in 50lb. bags with no brand name or label.

It is unknown at this time which, if any, of the more than 1,200 illnesses reported to date are related to this particular product or to the grower who supplied this product. Distribution of these products has been suspended while FDA, the Texas Department of State Health Services and the company continue their investigation as to the source of the problem.

Consumers and retailers who purchased Jalapeno Peppers should contact their supplier to determine if their products are involved in the recall. Commercial manufacturers that have used these recalled Jalapeno Peppers as an ingredient in other products (i.e. salsas, etc.) are encouraged to contact their local FDA office to determine if these products should be recalled.

 Additionally, restaurants, retail food stores, and similar retail institutions that have used these Jalapeno Peppers as a garnish or as an ingredient to prepare entrees, salsas or other products are asked to dispose of these products making sure that all such peppers are not inadvertently made available for purchase, salvage or donation and therefore preventing any possibility for human or animal consumption..  Consumers with questions may contact the company at (956)-631-6405.

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Only showing how our food system is truly global, today, US government inspectors have found Salmonella Saintpaul, the strain responsible for a nationwide food-poisoning outbreak, in Mexican-grown jalapenos in a Texas plant, prompting a new warning for consumers to avoid eating fresh jalapenos.

However, the FDA continues to say that it doesn't mean Mexican jalapenos are the culprit — the pepper may not have been contaminated on the farm. And while tomatoes currently are safe to eat, health officials also said the finding doesn't exonerate tomatoes that were sold earlier in the spring and summer.

Ouch, that makes my head hurt.

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According to the CDC since April, 1237 persons infected genetic fingerprint have been identified in 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization. One new state, Montana, reported a case. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (2 persons), Arkansas (16), Arizona (54), California (9), Colorado (16), Connecticut (4), Florida (3), Georgia (28), Idaho (6), Illinois (113), Indiana (18), Iowa (2), Kansas (19), Kentucky (2), Louisiana (1), Maine (1), Maryland (36), Massachusetts (28), Michigan (24), Minnesota (22), Mississippi (2), Missouri (20), Montana (1), New Hampshire (5), Nevada (12), New Jersey (12), New Mexico (102), New York (38), North Carolina (23), Ohio (10), Oklahoma (25), Oregon (10), Pennsylvania (12), Rhode Island (3), South Carolina (2), Tennessee (9), Texas (475), Utah (2), Virginia (31), Vermont (2), Washington (17), West Virginia (1), Wisconsin (13), and the District of Columbia (1). Five ill persons are reported from Canada; four appear to have been infected while traveling in the United States, and one illness remains under investigation.

Also, according to the CDC, Illnesses have been linked to consumption of an "item" containing fresh tomatoes and fresh jalapeño peppers.  Illnesses were also linked to an "item" containing fresh jalapeño peppers and no other of the suspect items.  The accumulated data from all investigations indicate that jalapeño peppers caused some illnesses but that they do not explain all illnesses.  Raw tomatoes, fresh serrano peppers, and fresh cilantro also remain under investigation.

The FDA has a slightly different take on this:

Consumers may resume enjoying any type of fresh tomato, including raw red plum, raw red Roma, and raw red round tomatoes.

While we are changing our consumer guidance about tomatoes, we reiterate our guidance to consumers that those in vulnerable populations (infants, the elderly, and immune-compromised people) should avoid eating jalapeño and serrano peppers as the investigation continues. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that many, but not all, of the people who have become ill during the outbreak also reported eating jalapeño or serrano peppers.

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The State of North Carolina has forced the recall of Mexican-grown HASS avocados and jalapenos of unknown origin after they tested positive for Salmonella.

Two samples from a Charlotte, NC food distributor tested positive for salmonella. The state asked the company to recall jalapeno peppers and HASS avocados it received from a specific Texas food supply company.

In addition, the Texas supplier has been requested to recall all of the implicated products distributed in North Carolina.

The HASS avocados were shipped from Texas in boxes labeled "Frutas Finas de Tancitaro HASS Avocados, Produce of Mexico," 60 count with lot number HUE08160090889.

The jalapenos were shipped in black plastic crates weighing about 15 pounds
and containing no brand name or other label.

There is no confirmation yet that this contamination is the same Salmonella Saintpaul strain that has sickened 23 people in North Carolina and more than 1,200 people nationwide.

State Public Health Director Leah Devlin said, "We do not know yet whether this is the Salmonella Saintpaul strain, but these potentially contaminated products must be removed regardless."

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Interpretation of Epidemic Curves During

an Active Outbreak

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ABC News just reported:

 The U.S. government has declared it's OK to eat tomatoes again, lifting its salmonella warning amid signs that the outbreak -- while not over -- may finally be slowing.

Officials reiterated earlier warnings that the people most at risk of salmonella should avoid hot peppers -- jalapenos and serranos.

The government still doesn't know just what caused the salmonella outbreak, and Thursday's move doesn't mean tomatoes are cleared.

Early on, there was good evidence linking them to the sick, but it's unlikely that any field where tomatoes were harvested in April and May still is in production.

That's the latest.  Oh, and at least 1,196 confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

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Today's update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added 19 confirmed cases to the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, bringing the total up to 1,167.   The latest onset date (last time someone got sick)  remains July 4th.  If you need to know more than we reported yesterday, you can always check with CDC here.

Dan Slater at the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog today published In Salmonella Outbreak, Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Says: ‘No One to Sue’

Slater managed to find Bill Marler himself in the northern reaches of Minnesota, where he is representing the folks who were unfortunate enough to consume some E. coli laced Nebraska Beef a couple of years ago.   Marler sheds light on the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak and the importance of finding the source.

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Remember one of the lessons of the movie classic "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid?"  If you are being chased and the distance on the ground between you and them isn't changing; your losing!

For days now, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has been able to look in its rear view mirror and ten days back see the last onset of the Salmonella Saintpaul illness.  The CDC today reported latest date for when Salmonella Saintpaul made was July 4th.

"Butch" and "Sundance" kept saying: "Who are those guys?"  CDC folk are probably saying a few things under their breath as well.  Its latest report has 1,148 confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul.  CDC has 28 investigators in the field, trying to figure out the source of this outbreak.   All it has been able to come up with so far, is a salad bowl of possibilities.  CDC today said:

Three larger clusters have been intensively investigated. In one, illnesses were linked to consumption of an item containing fresh tomatoes and fresh jalapeno peppers.

In the other two, illnesses were linked to an item containing fresh jalapeno peppers and no other of the suspect items. The accumulated data from all investigations indicate that jalapeno peppers caused some illnesses but that they do not explain all illnesses.

Raw tomatoes, fresh serrano peppers, and fresh cilantro also remain under investigation. Investigators from many agencies are collaborating to track the source of the implicated peppers and other produce items.

Read the Extended Entry for the complete press release with map from CDC:

Continue Reading...

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The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) today says its counting 1,017 confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul in 41 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada.   West Virginia appears to be the latest state with a case added to the count.

We found some of the commentary in CDC's statement today interesting.  Take this:

An initial epidemilogic investigation in New Mexico and Texas comparing foods eaten by persons who were ill in May to foods eaten by well persons identified consumption of raw tomatoes as strongly linked to illness.

An investigation by who?   Is CDC implying the initial investigation was mistaken?  And that statement is followed by this:

A similar but much larger, nationwide study comparing persons who were ill in June to well persons found that ill persons were more likely to have recently consumed raw tomatoes, fresh jalapeno peppers, and fresh cilantro. These items were commonly, though not always, consumed together, so that study could not determine which item(s) caused the illnesses.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has NOT moved off its now 30+ day "warning to consumers nationwide that an outbreak of Salmonella serotype Saintpaul, an uncommon type of Salmonella, has been linked to consumption of some raw red plum, red Roma, round red tomatoes, and products containing these raw tomatoes."

Today, however, CDC goes on to say:

Recently, many clusters of illnesses have been identified in several states among persons who ate at restaurants. Most clusters involve fewer than 5 ill persons. Three larger clusters have been intensively investigated. In one, illnesses were linked to consumption of an item containing fresh tomatoes and fresh jalapeno peppers. In the other two, illnesses were linked to an item containing fresh jalapeno peppers and no other of the suspect items. The accumulated data from all investigations indicate that jalapeno peppers caused some illnesses but that they do not explain all illnesses. Raw tomatoes, fresh serrano peppers, and fresh cilantro also remain under investigation. Investigators from many agencies are collaborating to track the source of the implicated peppers and other produce items.

Head down below to the Extended Entry for the big map and more commentary from CDC. Continue Reading...

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We suppose the good news is that the date for the last time someone contracted Salmonella Saintpaul has NOT moved beyond last June 26th nor have any more states been added to the total of 40 and the District of Columbia.   The number of confirmed Salmonella Saintpaul cases has edged up to 971.

Tonight, we are going to ask you to go here for the CDC's maps, numbers and details.

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According to CNN, “starting Monday, health inspectors will halt the shipment of ingredients common to Mexican cuisine from Mexico to the United States” – this will include cilantro, jalapeno peppers, Serrano peppers, scallions and bulb onions. I assume that it may still include tomatoes?

As for illnesses, the CDC reports that 943 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. Nearly 150 have been hospitalized. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (2 persons), Arkansas (10), Arizona (45), California (8), Colorado (12), Connecticut (4), Florida (2), Georgia (24), Idaho (4), Illinois (93), Indiana (14), Iowa (2), Kansas (17), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (1), Maine (1), Maryland (29), Massachusetts (22), Michigan (7), Minnesota (8), Missouri (12), New Hampshire (4), Nevada (11), New Jersey (9), New Mexico (98), New York (28), North Carolina (10), Ohio (7), Oklahoma (23), Oregon (10), Pennsylvania (8), Rhode Island (3), South Carolina (1), Tennessee (8), Texas (356), Utah (2), Virginia (29), Vermont (2), Washington (4), Wisconsin (10), and the District of Columbia (1). One ill person is reported from Ontario, Canada. 

According to the CDC, for every one person who is a stool-culture positive victim of salmonella in the United States, there a multiple of 38.5 who are also sick, but remain uncounted.  (See, AC Voetsch, “FoodNet estimate of the burden of illness caused by nontyphoidal Salmonella infections in the United States,”Clinical Infectious Diseases 2004;38 (Suppl 3):S127-34).  That means that we are close to poisoning 38,000 people and we do not even know the vector.

See Wall Street Journal Article - "Jalapenos Probed in Outbreak"

The fresh vegetable industry has been beating up on the CDC and FDA in recent days - some even ignoring the ill people and asking for government handouts to tomato growers.

Something to think about, according to the FDA, during the past decade, the consumption of fresh and fresh-cut tomatoes has been linked to at least 12 different outbreaks of foodborne illness (most salmonella) in the United States. Those outbreaks include 1,840 confirmed cases of illness. The majority of these outbreaks have been traced to products from Florida and the eastern shore of Virginia; however, tomato-associated outbreaks also have been traced to tomatoes from California, Georgia, Ohio, and South Carolina.

On the other hand I could not find a Jalapeno outbreak tied to salmonella at all and only two possibly linked to Hepatitis A and Norovirus.  Heck,  at Virginia Tech researchers found that "Hot pepper oil may prevent salmonella in poultry."
 

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Another day, another 35 confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul and Iowa and Louisiana have joined the oubreak.  That brings the ground being covered by this outbreak to 40 states and the District of Columbia.  Plus, Canada has confirmed one of its citizens is also a Salmonella Saintpaul victim after getting back from the USA.  And the most recent date for someone getting sick advanced to June 25th.

Here from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention are today's numbers and the other various details:

Cases infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul, United States, by state, as of July 2, 2008 9pm EDT

Since April, 922 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 40 states and the District of Columbia. These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization.

Two new states, Iowa and Louisiana, report ill persons. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (2 persons), Arkansas (10), Arizona (45), California (8), Colorado (12), Connecticut (4), Florida (1), Georgia (22), Idaho (4), Illinois (91), Indiana (14), Iowa (2), Kansas (17), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (1), Maine (1), Maryland (29), Massachusetts (22), Michigan (7), Minnesota (2), Missouri (12), New Hampshire (4), Nevada (11), New Jersey (6), New Mexico (95), New York (26), North Carolina (10), Ohio (7), Oklahoma (23), Oregon (10), Pennsylvania (8), Rhode Island (3), South Carolina (1), Tennessee (7), Texas (356), Utah (2), Virginia (29), Vermont (2), Washington (4), Wisconsin (10), and the District of Columbia (1).

Among the 627 persons with information available, illnesses began between April 10 and June 25, 2008, including 210 who became ill on June 1 or later. Many steps must occur between a person becoming ill and the determination that the illness was caused by the outbreak strain of Salmonella; these steps take an average of 2-3 weeks.

Therefore, an illness reported today may have begun 2-3 weeks ago. Patients range in age from <1 to 99 years; 49 percent are female. The rate of illness is highest among persons 20 to 29 years old; the rate of illness is lowest in children 10 to 19 years old and in persons 80 or more years old. At least 111 persons were hospitalized. One death in a man in Texas in his eighties has been associated with this outbreak. In addition, a man in his sixties who died in Texas from cancer had an infection with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul at the time of his death; the infection may have contributed to his death.

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The CDC says now that we have 887 people infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 38 states and the District of Columbia.  Two new states, Alabama and South Carolina, report ill persons. 

The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (2 persons), Arkansas (10), Arizona (44), California (8), Colorado (11), Connecticut (4), Florida (1), Georgia (22), Idaho (4), Illinois (91), Indiana (11), Kansas (17), Kentucky (1), Maine (1), Maryland (29), Massachusetts (21), Michigan (6), Minnesota (2), Missouri (12), New Hampshire (3), Nevada (11), New Jersey (6), New Mexico (90), New York (26), North Carolina (5), Ohio (7), Oklahoma (23), Oregon (10), Pennsylvania (8), Rhode Island (3), South Carolina (1), Tennessee (6), Texas (354), Utah (2), Virginia (22), Vermont (2), Washington (4), Wisconsin (6), and the District of Columbia (1).

The produce industry is calling for "investigations" (hmmm, where have they been in the last several years as they have poisoned thousands?) to see why the CDC and FDA may have picked tomatoes instead of Salsa as the vector for all these illnesses.  The USA Today quotes me as saying:

Bill Marler, one of the nation's leading food-safety attorneys, says the FDA can't be faulted for acting in the absence of a "smoking tomato" laced with the salmonella bacteria.

"Should they have waited until they knew exactly what it was? Well, whose side do they want to come down on: the side of public health and kids or the produce industry?" Marler asks.

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The fact the number of confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul continued to rise on Monday was not the big worry for the Centers for Disease Conrol and Prevention (CDC).

It was the fact that the date that people continued to fall ill continues to move forward, now the latest onset date for the illness is June 20th.

That means that in the month sine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took over the investigation into the outbreak that began in New Mexico and Texas; not much has been accomplished. People were warned not to eat certain tomatoes thought to be associated with the outbreak. No tomato field has yet to be named as the source of the outbreak.

And people are still getting sick.

So after last Friday's press conference where FDA and CDC officials acknowledged that the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak might be due to something other than tomatoes, something had to happen today.

Robert Tauxe, CDC's deputy director for food-borne diseases, told USA Today that "we're broadening the investigation to be sure it encompasses food items that are commonly consumed with tomatoes."  (Tauxe is pictured above)

Indeed there is evidence that CDC has been pulling FDA off the single focus on tomatoes for several days.   And after Friday's CDC/FDA press conference,  USA Today reports:

Over the weekend, the tide of opinion among epidemiologists, produce companies and food safety officials also began to turn in that direction.

Tomatoes couldn't have caused an outbreak that has stretched from early April to late June, says Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business magazine. "There's not a field in the world" that produces that long, he says.

If not tomatoes, what else? "Something that people find difficult to remember but which is always served with tomatoes," says Tauxe.

That would put salsa, jalapeño peppers, green onions and cilantro at the top of the list of potential culprits, says Doug Powell, director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS.

For the rest of the USA Today story, go here.

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Persons infected with the outbreak

strain of Salmonella Saintpaul,

 by state, as of 9pm EST June 29, 2008

Continue Reading...

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In case anyone is concerned that the tomato industry or the larger produce industry does not have a voice in this ongoing Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, let us introduce you to Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit.

Through this saga, we’ve largely relied upon “official” sources of information. The states, especially New Mexico and Texas that were impacted early, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

As the outbreak has dragged on, there’s been an occasional nugget of new information from some of the media covering it. What we’ve really been lacking, however, was for a true expert to speak out and tell us if we were wrong to be thinking this outbreak investigation is inept exercise by federal bureaucrats who couldn’t find a bleeding Elephant in the snow.

Then Mr. Prevor stepped forth with a comprehensive interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota. He is the true expert, highly respected and just maybe the man who forced FDA and CDC to come clean in their “well maybe its not tomatoes” news conference last Friday.

That’s what Mr. Prevor thinks. We found many of Dr. Osterholm’s quotes so compelling that we are taking the liberty of using a few of them here after questions that are a little shorter than the ones from the conversation between Mr. Prevor and Dr. Osterholm. We strongly encourage you to read the full version at the Perishable Pundit.



Should it make a difference where an outbreak occurs?

In the first instance, all infectious disease is local and only as good as local surveillance. Fortunately, we’ve had states such as Minnesota, Oregon and Tennessee that have really been on the cutting edge of detecting outbreaks because of very good surveillance. Local and state surveillance only works when health laboratories are equipped with the capacity to quickly characterize the bacterial isolates from these patients.

Where did the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak begin and how did those states do?

New Mexico did a great job in this outbreak. On the whole, Minnesota, Oregon and Tennessee have led the way. The problem is that many states are not geared up to respond. In this outbreak, scores of cases are six weeks old or so. In Texas, many of the “new” cases are not new at all. The Texas Public Health Department is finally catching up in the lab with isolate characterization. The state only has two labs for this kind of fingerprinting.

And how about once the federal government arrives on the scene?

The whole system is flawed. The relationship between FDA and CDC is strained; it’s improved but still lacking. It’s not clear who is really in charge. Authority is split up in a way that decisions get bogged down and you don’t have anyone in command. You need that to effectively launch and oversee an outbreak investigation. I’m not sure who’s in charge. We have people identified as being in charge. We need someone that understands outbreaks, not just manages them. In this case, it appears that instead of experienced professionals, Outbreak Investigation Class 101 was doing the control study.

How did the federal government build upon the good work of the states?

The case control study initiated by New Mexico was important and did provide critical information. It used interviews comparing foods eaten by ill and well persons to identify consumption of raw tomatoes as the likely source of the illnesses. I believe New Mexico did try to do some trace back to the source but didn’t have the information or authority to go all the way back to Mexico.

New Mexico should be applauded for what they did relative to what they could do. CDC supports the overall epidemiological investigation. I know for a fact, however, that the government did not trace back any product reported by the control group. We don’t have a trace back to the source using the information from the control group. That was not done.

Has the investigation worked with tomato growers?

The final piece on this outbreak debacle: several of us have done a lot of work on outbreaks. We went to a wise group in the produce industry with no horse in the race. They looked at the patterns and they knew this market so well. This simple task of eliciting help from industry experts was not done by the investigators to any meaningful extent. We do very a poor job of bringing in the industry to help solve these outbreaks. What does this mean? That straightforward questioning didn’t happen in a way that would have been most helpful.

What about that list of safe growing areas?

Right from the get-go, it was unclear how FDA was coming up with that list; why certain states and countries made the list while others were excluded. If any place not producing in late-April/early-May is safe, why the confusion and piecemeal additions to the list day by day? It appeared there was no rhyme or reason why a state or country was on the list. The logic was lacking. If FDA believed states and countries not in production at time of the outbreak were safe, they should have included all states and countries in that category.

On the other hand, if FDA has the view that a re-packer could be involved, which it now says it does, then it means FDA’s list would have been invalid and in their view putting consumers at risk. Either way, it’s not based in logic. Is it by dates of production, or is it not by dates of production because product could come through a re-packer?

There is a major issue with transparency. Why would you say something is or isn’t involved? First, the formation of the FDA list is disingenuous. It was based on those that screamed the loudest, and from a public health standpoint, that’s not right.

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From a CDC/FDA Press Conference today:

As salmonella cases continue to climb, the government is checking if tainted tomatoes really are to blame for the record outbreak - or if the problem is with another ingredient, or a warehouse that is contaminating newly harvested tomatoes. Federal health officials say there's no evidence clearing tomatoes. But inspectors haven't yet found the outbreak's source even as cases continue to rise - to 810 confirmed ill. Most worrisome, the latest victim became sick on June 15. Patricia Griffin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the agency is looking into other ingredients, just in case tomatoes were not to blame.

CDC is collaborating with public health officials in many states, the Indian Health Service, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate an ongoing multi-state outbreak of human Salmonella serotype Saintpaul infections. An epidemiologic investigation comparing foods eaten by ill and well persons has identified consumption of raw tomatoes as the likely source of the illnesses. The specific type and source of tomatoes is under investigation; however, the data suggest that illnesses are linked to consumption of raw red plum, red Roma, or round red tomatoes, or any combination of these types of tomatoes, and to products containing these raw tomatoes.


Since April, 810 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 36 states and the District of Columbia. These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization. Maine and Minnesota have been added to the list of states with ill persons. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Arkansas (10 persons), Arizona (39), California (10), Colorado (8), Connecticut (4), Florida (1), Georgia (18), Idaho (3), Illinois (78), Indiana (11), Kansas (14), Kentucky (1), Maine (1), Maryland (25), Massachusetts (18), Michigan (4), Minnesota (2), Missouri (12), New Hampshire (3), Nevada (4), New Jersey (4), New Mexico (85), New York (25), North Carolina (5), Ohio (6), Oklahoma (19), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (6), Rhode Island (3), Tennessee (6), Texas (342), Utah (2), Virginia (22), Vermont (1), Washington (4), Wisconsin (6), and the District of Columbia (1).

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The Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) added 49 individual cases to the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak today, bringing the total to 756.   Everyone who has come down with the rare salmonella strain did so before June 13th.  The outbreak continues to involve 34 states and the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile the hunt for the source of the bad tomatoes continues.   Its been a week since the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) sent teams to specific tomato fields in Mexico and south Florida.  While there's been nothing new from the  FDA investigation, the Palm Beach Post reported this:

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said Thursday he is "99.99 percent" sure that a national salmonella outbreak was not caused by Florida-grown tomatoes, but that more definitive identification of produce origin would help investigators track down where the infection came from.

Bronson traveled Thursday to Washington to meet with David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for foods, to discuss the labeling issue and others related to the outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul, which began in April.

The meeting included two Florida congressmen: Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, and Allen Boyd, D-Panama City.  Four Florida counties have yet to be cleared.  Florida's only case of Salmonella Saintpaul involves a man who ate a raw tomato while traveling in New York.

"We know the confusion they are going through," Bronson said of the FDA investigation. "The fact that you have repacking going on across the country with Florida tomatoes puts our label on some product that is not 100 percent Florida product."

Bronson said he recommended to the FDA and the congressmen that repacked tomatoes be better identified.

More from the Post here.

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Sometimes we think about things in terms of what might make good fiction.  

Chapter 1 - A rare strain of Salmonella spread by an early harvest of tomatoes somewhere in Mexico or Florida makes thousands of people sick in the United States. Hundreds if not thousands of state and federal food safety and health officials are, so far,  failing to find the source of dangerous tomatoes.

Chapter 2 - Across the globe at the ritzy Grand Hotel Gardone in Italy, 71-year old Geoffrey Appleyard, a British tourist, dies a mysterious death as 30 other Brits become sick with a "virulent" strain of salmonella.   Thirteen are ill enough to be sealed off in an isolation ward at an Italian hospital.

Coincidence?

We sure hope so.   Police have yet to establish any link between the food poisoning and Mr Appleyard's death.   According to the UK Telegraph:

Mr Appleyard was discovered slumped in the bathroom by his wife Jean later that evening and died shortly after.

Mrs Appleyard remained at the hotel with her daughter and gave a statement to police.

Previously, Mrs Appleyard said her husband had begun to feel ill after eating a seafood risotto and a main course of fish. An autopsy was carried out and the results are expected in the next few days, the police said.

The state prosecutor has opened an inquiry into possible manslaughter and causing grievous harm.

Go here for the UK Telegraph story, which has lots of comments from the recovering tourists.

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States with persons with the outbreak

strain of Salmonella Saintpaul,

by state of residence.

Since April, 707 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 34 states and the District of Columbia. These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization.

The increase in reported ill persons since the last update is not thought to be due to a large number of new infections. The number of reported ill persons increased mainly because some states improved surveillance for Salmonella in response to this outbreak and because laboratory identification of many previously submitted strains was completed.

No new states report ill people. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Arkansas (7 persons), Arizona (36), California (10), Colorado (5), Connecticut (4), Florida (1), Georgia (15), Idaho (3), Illinois (63), Indiana (11), Kansas (11), Kentucky (1), Maryland (25), Massachusetts (17), Michigan (4), Missouri (12), New Hampshire (1), Nevada (4), New Jersey (4), New Mexico (80), New York (18), North Carolina (5), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (17), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (6), Rhode Island (3), Tennessee (6), Texas (293), Utah (2), Virginia (22), Vermont (1), Washington (5), Wisconsin (6), and the District of Columbia (1).

 Among the 492 persons with information available, illnesses began between April 10 and June 13, 2008. Patients range in age from <1 to 99 years; 50 percent are female. At least 76 persons were hospitalized. No deaths have been officially attributed to this outbreak. However, a man in his sixties who died in Texas from cancer, had an infection with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul at the time of his death. The infection may have contributed to his death.

Source: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta

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While we are all wondering how long those federal teams will remain in those tomato fields in old Mexico and south Florida,  we thought it might be a good time to offer a little editorial opinion of our own.

Two weeks ago, on June 11th, the New Mexico Department of Health issued a time-line covering their early involvement in the outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul caused by bad tomatoes.  That PDF file document can be found here.

Some key moments:

1. May 11 - First illness in New Mexico.
2. May 21 - Salmonella Saintpaul identified
3. May 22 - New Mexico contacts the Centers for Disease Control
4. May 23 - New Mexico makes outbreak known to public
5. May 30 - FDA joins "conference call" with New Mexico

We'd love to know more about why it took FDA a week and day longer than CDC to get up and running on this outbreak.   Is that the fast response the HHS Secretary is promising if FDA gets to open an office in Latin America?

But let's forget that for a moment.   Let's focus on next Monday, June 30th.   On that date, FDA will have been on the case for a full 30 days.  One month.   If the largest and best funded food safety agency on the planet cannot find the source of the bad tomatoes by then, heads should roll.

With Katrina and the FBI's Anthrax investigation, the bar for performance from the federal government these days is so low that FDA will probably crawl under it.

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We interrupt this blog to bring you news of a salmonella outbreak NOT involving tomatoes.  For this report, we must go high up into the mountains of North Carolina where we know from past personal experience that it sure is pretty this time of year.

But along comes the Asheville Citizen-Times with a report of a salmonella outbreak in Marion, NC.
The "Voice of the Mountains" reports on nine cases of salmonella linked to a single McDowell County restaurant.   But the outbreak is NOT being linked to tainted tomatoes because tomatoes supplied to the restaurant came from a so-called "safe" growing area as defined by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

The newspaper said:

Officials are still investigating what was behind the local outbreak, but they said it wasn't from people eating tainted tomatoes at the diner, which is owned by Lois O'Dear.



"It's not tomatoes in her restaurant. She got her tomatoes from suppliers who got tomatoes from a safe zone that was marked by the (FDA )," said Buck Wilson, local health director.

Let's hope that "safe" list is as good as it is being taken for in North Carolina.  Meanwhile, for the rest of the story, go here.

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This weekend began with news from both the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

The FDA gave the impression it was closing in on the source of the contaminated tomatoes, sending teams into areas of both Mexico and Florida to some specific farms that might finally turn up who is responsible for the outbreak.    FDA said:

The FDA is now working to narrow the investigation. As part of this, the agency is sending teams of multi-disciplinary experts to both Mexico and Florida this weekend to conduct joint inspections of the farms and other critical points on the supply chain where the tomatoes may have become contaminated.

The FDA investigators will conduct joint inspections with regulators in Mexico and Florida at the farms and other distribution points. Meanwhile, the FDA will continue to collect samples of tomatoes and conduct traceback activities.

To further narrow the investigation, the FDA is working with the state of Texas to traceback a cluster of illnesses recently found by the state of Texas. We are hopeful that this will provide additional information to bring the agency closer to the source of the contamination.

The FDA is working jointly with Mexico and Florida and other states to update the list of areas not associated with the outbreak and will continue to post the information on the web site.

While painting a target on Mexico, FDA at the same time added most Mexican states to the
list of "safe" tomato growing areas.

The "safe" areas now include  include the Mexican states of: Aguascalientes, Baja California Norte, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Distrito Federal, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, México, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tobasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas.

The only Mexican state bordering on the U.S. not on the "safe" list is Coahuila.

CDC's list of confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul connected to the tainted tomatoes was 552 as the weekend began.   It said 32 states and the District of Columbia were involved.   New Jersey and Rhode Island were the latest states added to the outbreak list.

So, will FDA close the case or be left so befuddled that the agency makes Lou Dobbs look profound?   What will it say about Mexico or Florida if either area is named when the music stops?
How high will CDC's confirmed number of cases go?   Might CDC say something about the liklihood from previous studies that something like 38 people go untreated for every confirmed case of salmonella? 

That, gentle readers, means about 21,000 people are now victims of Salmonella Saintpaul due to bad tomatoes.

Continue Reading...

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States with persons with the outbreak strain of

 Salmonella Saintpaul, by state of residence.

Here are the money lines from today's update on the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak involving tomatoes from the Centers on Disease Control & Prevention:

Since April, 383 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 30 states and the District of Columbia: Arkansas (2 persons), Arizona (26), California (8), Colorado (2), Connecticut (2), Florida (1), Georgia (8), Idaho (3), Illinois (34), Indiana (8), Kansas (9), Kentucky (1), Maryland (10), Michigan (3), Missouri (9), New Hampshire (1), New Mexico (70), New York (9), North Carolina (1), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (5), Oregon (4), Pennsylvania (2), Tennessee (4), Texas (131), Utah (2), Virginia (17), Vermont (1), Washington (1), Wisconsin (5), and the District of Columbia (1).

These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization. The marked increase in reported ill persons is not primarily due to a large number of new infections. The number of reported ill persons increased markedly mainly because some states improved surveillance for Salmonella in response to this outbreak and because laboratory identification of many previously submitted strains was completed.

Among the 243 persons with information available, illnesses began between April 10 and June 5, 2008. Patients range in age from <1 to 88 years; 47 percent are female. At least 48 persons were hospitalized. No deaths have been officially attributed to this outbreak. However, a man in his sixties who died in Texas from cancer had an infection with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul at the time of his death. The infection may have contributed to his death.

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Bill's blog has the new official numbers from the Centers on Disease Control & Prevention on the Salmonella Saintpaul tomato outbreak.   Go here for it.  We've got a border-to-border, coast-to-coast outreak here involving 28 states with 277 confirmed cases and the related death of Raul Rivera in Houston.

One state, Oklahoma, has  been added to the "safe" growing areas list.   Many national restaurant chains are returning tomatoes to their menus after making sure they can obtain product from those safe areas.

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Now it's been two weeks and a day since the Centers For Disease Control called up the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to report that we have a problem with tomatoes.

Instead of quickly being able to come up with the area growing the tomatoes tainted with the deadly Salmonella Saintpaul bacteria, FDA has been dribbling out a list of areas NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE OUTBREAK.  

Today, the first piece of old Mexico was added to that "safe" list in the form of "Baja California (Norte)"

That would be Northern Baja California, as marked on the map, for those of you who would prefer our government keeps giving us vital information in the King's English.

FDA says: "Product lots of tomatoes harvested in this State in Mexico are allowed export into the U.S. with a certificate issued by the Secretaria de Fomento Agropecuario del Gobierno del Estado de Baja California (Agency)."

We think that last part has to do with getting a paper signed by the local Mexican agriculture official. 

Just ahead of this piece of old Mexico, New Mexico and Indiana were added to the safe list.

If you do not know where the tomatoes in your store or local drive thru fast food joint are grown, FDA says you should ask around.   If everybody is clueless, like FDA, you should not risk eating tomatoes.  Got it?

Our count of states with 333 confirmed cases of Salmonella saintpaul from tainted tomatoes stands at 25 plus the District of Columbia.   Health experts figure for every confirmed case of Salmonella, another 40 gut it out at home without seeing a doctor.   That would mean, this outbreak has in all probability  made at least 13,320 people sick so far.

We continue below with the official update from FDA:
Continue Reading...

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Since yesterday’s update of the numbers from the Centers for Disease Control, it appears that new cases of Salmonella Saintpaul have turned up in Ohio, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia.

The Columbus Dispatch reports:

Three cases of salmonella have been reported in central Ohio and linked to the national outbreak involving tomatoes, according to Columbus Public Health.

The Ohio story is here.


The Lexington Herald-Leader reports:

The Salmonella outbreak linked to tomatoes has reached Kentucky.

A Louisville woman has been diagnosed with the same strain of Salmonella that has sicked people in 23 other states, the Kentucky Department of Public Health announced Friday.

Go here for more from Kentucky.


And the Washington, D.C. Examiner reports:

The District of Columbia has reported its first case of salmonella linked to the current tomato-related outbreak.

The D.C. Department of Health said a resident tested positive for Salmonella Saintpaul, the uncommon type of salmonella that has sickened at least 228 other people in 23 states.

Officials say the resident appears to have eaten many tomatoes recently.

The D.C. story can be found here.

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The official number of confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul now stands at 228, up from 167; and the number of affected states now is 23, up from 17.

Six states added to the outbreak are: Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Tennessee and Vermont. The addition of states in the South and East gives the outbreak, which started out in the West, looking more and more like a border-to-border event

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration remains clueless about the source of the tainted tomato outbreak, nor are they certain all the bad tomatoes are off the market. The latest onset date for a confirmed case is June 1st.

One death has been attributed to Salmonella Saintpaul.   Raul Rivera, 67, of Houston, died June 4th.

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Everybody knows that coming "close" usually does not count.  For the last couple news cycles, top officials from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration(FDA) including Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach have been quoted saying that the agency is "very close" to naming the source of the tainted tomatoes that have spread Salmonella Saintpaul to 17 states.

Tonight, however, comes a report in the Los Angeles Times that FDA hunt for the source be failing to bag any prey.  Here's what the LA Times was told:

"Obviously the critical question is, where did these specific tomatoes come from? And we're not quite there yet. At this point today, we don't know where they came from," said David Acheson, the FDA's associate commissioner for foods.

And some Q&A:

Has the FDA found the source of the tainted tomatoes?

No, the investigation continues. Health officials are hampered because tomatoes don't carry bar codes. Suppliers might get the fruit from multiple farms, and that makes it hard to figure out where the contamination started.

Any suspects?

Investigators are focusing on tomatoes from central Florida and Mexico -- regions that would have supplied the bulk of the fruit on the market in April, when the outbreak started. They also have ruled out all of California and northern Florida, which also are big tomato-growing regions. Those areas were not harvesting at the time of the outbreak and could not have been responsible.

Go here for more of: Federal probe stumped on bad tomatoes.

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State agriculture commissioners just happen to be meeting in Louisville, and they say the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is harming innocent tomato producers throughout the South.

“We understand that the FDA has a big responsibility, but it is necessary for them to open the lines of communication with the public as well as the states,” said Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer, president of the Southern Association of State Departments of Agriculture (SASDA), during SASDA’s annual conference in Lexington, Ky. “The FDA needs to work with the states to pinpoint the source of the outbreak and eradicate it without unnecessarily harming producers whose products are not affected by the outbreak.”

Other Ag commissioners piled on:

• Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said the FDA’s statements on the salmonella outbreak “have basically shut down the southern tomato growers.” 
• Commissioner Bronson said no FDA official has been to Florida or asked his state’s government to help trace the outbreak. 
• Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks pointed out that his state, which borders Florida, is on the FDA’s list of unaffected states. “It doesn’t make good sense,” he said.
• Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Ken Givens said the decision of some national restaurant chains to take tomatoes off their products comes at a time when U.S. hamburger consumption is at an all-time high. “This couldn’t come at a worse time,” he said
• West Virginia Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglass said the FDA’s statements on the outbreak are affecting sales of hydroponically grown tomatoes from states farther north that are not on the FDA’s list of unaffected states.

Late Tuesday, FDA added much of Florida to the list of tomato growing areas found not to be responsible for the current 17-state outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul in tomatoes.  What everybody has been waiting for, however, is for FDA to say where the tainted tomatoes actually came from.  Mexico is No. 1 on the suspect list, but FDA has gone through a lengthy process of naming the innocent before finding the guilty.

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State of Florida officials say the Sunshine State has been added to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) "Safe to Eat" list ---meaning Florida is NOT responsible for the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak in tomatoes.

Florida is the nation's largest grower of fresh tomatoes and it has a $40 million crop ready to be picked, making today's announcement by the state one of vital economic importance to the state.

It will be the 20th state to hit the FDA list.   Seven foreign counties have also been cleared.

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We think we just heard a radio network news report saying that the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention now lists the death of 67-year old Paul Rivera of Houston as the first official fatality of the outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul in tomatoes.

Mr. Rivera died June 4th after he and most of his family dined on pico de gallo, a tomato-based condiment, at a Mexican restaurant in late May and were stricken with Salmonella Saintpaul.

Like many a fatal victim of food-borne illnesses like Salmonella, Mr. Rivera had a weakened immune system as he was being treated for lymphoma, a cancer that does impair the immune system.  People with weakened immune systems, the elderly, and younger children are always most at risk during outbreaks like the one we are now experiencing.

Death certificates usually are written from the most recent to the contributing factors.   Had he not had the fatal serving of pico de gallo, would Mr. Rivera not be alive today?  From the family's statements, we think he would be.

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States with persons with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul, by state of residence.

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention offers the following summary of the outbreak as of today:

Since mid-April, 167 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 17 states: Arizona (12 persons), California (2), Colorado (1), Connecticut (1), Idaho (2), Illinois (27), Indiana (7), Kansas (5), Michigan (2), New Mexico (39), Oklahoma (3), Oregon (3), Texas (56), Utah (1), Virginia (2), Washington (1), and Wisconsin (3). These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization. Among the 73 persons who have been interviewed, illnesses began between April 16 and May 27, 2008. Patients range in age from 1 to 82 years; 49% are female. At least 23 persons were hospitalized.

CDC Comments on How Rarity of Salmonella Saintpaul

Only 3 persons infected with this strain of Salmonella Saintpaul were identified in the country during the same period in 2007. The previous rarity of this strain and the distribution of illnesses in all U.S. regions suggest that the implicated tomatoes are distributed throughout much of the country. Because of inherent delays in reporting and because many persons with Salmonella illness do not have a stool specimen tested, it is likely many more illnesses have occurred than those reported.

US Food & Drug Administration(FDA) Adds 12 States to "Safe" List

The "safe" list of states and countries has been expanded by FDA with the addition of 12 more states.  (In bold face type ) The seven countries on the list remain unchanged. FDA recommends consuming raw red plum, raw red Roma, or raw red round tomatoes only if grown and harvested from the areas that HAVE NOT BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH