The Washington State Department of Health reports that 22 people have recently been sickened by Vibrio Parahaemolyticus bacteria after eating raw oysters. 18 vibriosis illnesses have been linked to commercial operations and four illnesses to recreational harvesting in Puget Sound and on the Washington coast.
Cooking shellfish thoroughly will prevent vibriosis illness and is always a
Lynne Terry, the food poisoning lady of the Portland Oregonian, tells the horroe story of the Lee/ Mullen-Bagby family’s nightmare – “ground turkey … put their baby Ruby in the hospital for seven days in June.”
Ten months old and eating meat only for a few weeks, Ruby was sickened by salmonella-tainted ground turkey.
William Marler, the nation’s leading lawyer and food safety advocate for victims of foodborne illness, calls on the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) to fulfill its public health mission and get antibiotic-resistant Salmonella out of the American meat supply.
In May 2011, as the number of illnesses were mounting
The below image, courtesy of Centers for Disease Control (CDC), is the “epi-curve,” so far, in the national Salmonella outbreak linked to Cargill’s ground turkey products. Cargill has since recalled almost 36 million pounds of ground turkey products sold under various labels and brand names since early 2011.
In Cargill’s statement regarding the recall, it points
We now know it’s Cargill’s ground turkey that is at the epicenter of the 26 state, 77 illness Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak, so, inevitably, we have to take a deeper look at Cargill’s other Salmonella outbreaks. Including the present ground turkey Salmonella outbreak, Cargill ground meat has been the source of multiple Salmonella outbreaks and
Cargill Value Added Meats, one of the largest turkey processors in the country and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cargill, Inc., an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services, announced today that it is recalling nearly 36 million pounds of fresh and frozen ground turkey produced at its facility in
Read Phyllis Entis’s blog post from today, “USDA’s Failed Salmonella Policy.” 35,000,000 of potentially contaminated ground turkey, at least 77 illnesses, and a death make you wonder whether, Phyllis, a long-time food safety microbiologist, may just know a thing or two about testing for Salmonella. Not the symbolic actions that various food industries
Cargill Value Added Meats – Retail (also referred to as CVAM-Retail) will announce a Class I Voluntary Fresh Ground Turkey Recall of approximately 35,709,675 pounds of ground turkey products August 3, 2011. The product may be linked to an outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg. All recalled products were produced at the Springdale, AR plant: USDA Establishment
It has been a busy week with 76 sickened and 1 death linked to Salmonella Heildelberg Ground Turkey and a non-recall:
Poultry and many other meats are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which cannot move to recall a tainted product until a link to illness has been made.
One of the few exceptions
Last year, in a USDA study, 10% of ground turkey retail samples were positive for Salmonella. Now we are in the midst of a major, multi-state Salmonella outbreak, made worse by the fact that the turkey meat involved is contaminated by a strain of Salmonella that is resistant to many antibiotics commonly prescribed to