Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Alfalfa sprout recall easily digested
Salmonella outbreaks typically make big public health news. Consider the furor surrounding the nationwide peanut butter recall earlier this year or the tainted tomato scare of 2008. But where is the hue and cry over the more recent multiple-state outbreak tied to eating contaminated alfalfa sprouts?
According to the CDC's May 7 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a total of 228 sprout-related salmonella cases have been reported in 13 states since Feb. 1. On April 26, the FDA and the CDC recommended that consumers not eat raw alfalfa sprouts until further notice and on May 1, the FDA notified sprout growers and retailers that the seed company identified as the source of the tainted sprouts was voluntarily withdrawing all affected seed lots from the market.
The FDA recommends thoroughly cooking your sprouts before eating, although that would seem to eliminate them as a crunchy salad topping. I'll opt for croutons over limp sprouts any day. Then again, now that tomatoes and peanut butter are back on shelves, pizza or a PB&J suddenly seem like sensible choices.
Labels: CDC, salmonella
posted by Janet Colwell at
12:10 PM
0 Comments
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Salmonella, and the sign of the devil
Though it seems like it's gone on forever, the salmonella-related peanut recall is far from over. New products are still added to the FDA's "recall" list on a daily basis, and the number of products on that list is well over 2,000.
A new poll by the Harvard School of Public Health finds that the public, while generally aware of the recall, is unaware of its scope. Less than half of those surveyed knew it includes snack bars, pre-packaged meals, ice cream, candy and jars of dry-roasted peanuts.
One big problem is that a lot of these products are the type that will sit on shelves or in freezers for months (or years), and by the time they are used, people will have long forgotten the recall. Providers should encourage patients to search their cabinets and freezers for any products that may contain peanuts, and check them against the searchable, online FDA database of recalled items (Too bad the URL is so unwieldy: www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/peanutbutterrecall/index.cfm).
Consumers can also call 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636) for product info.
(The latest figures, btw, show the outbreak has sickened 666 people in 45 states. That's right, 666.)
Labels: peanut butter, recall, salmonella
posted by Jessica Berthold at
11:23 AM
0 Comments
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Redefining "organic"
Organic: Characteristic of, pertaining to, or derived from living organisms.
--Random House Dictionary, 2006
Every day when I come to work, my email inbox is flooded with more product recalls from the FDA, thanks to those darn salmonella-tainted peanuts. The vast number of products supplied by the Peanut Corp of America plant amazes me: they range from store-brand ice cream to high-end "organic" protein bars.
Huh. I never realized the "organic" label referred to animal feces. Though I suppose that is just about as organic as it gets.
Labels: FDA, peanuts, salmonella
posted by Jessica Berthold at
10:38 AM
0 Comments
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A company that makes Enron look good
I just listened to an FDA/CDC conference call about the salmonella outbreak. It turns out that Peanut Corporation of America, the company which supplied the tainted peanut butter and paste, detected salmonella in its own plant twelve times in 2007 and 2008 ...and shipped out its product anyway. Then the company failed to take mitigating steps to make sure it didn't happen again.
Whoever was in charge of that little operation should be glad he or she doesn't live in China.
CDC/FDA also said to expect more recalls as they continue to link the supplier to various products (A big job: FDA said it has already visited nearly 1,000 firms which got supplies from PCA). The illness toll to date: 501 sick, 108 hospitalized, and 8 dead. Twenty-one percent of the sick cases were in kids age five and under.
Full report from the investigation on FDA's Web site tomorrow.
Labels: FDA, peanut butter, salmonella
posted by Jessica Berthold at
4:30 PM
0 Comments
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