Salmonella Outbreak Widens to 41 States - Reuters, filed at 10:43 pm EST

[Burma Jones]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning linked to peanut butter has widened to 329 people in 41 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

Local health officials in Illinois and Pennsylvania were checking to see if the deaths of an elderly man and an elderly woman might have been caused by the contaminated peanut butter.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said all Peter Pan peanut butter bought since May 2006, and all of Wal-Mart Inc.'s (WMT.N) Great Value peanut butter with the batch code 2111 should be discarded.


http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-conagra-peanutbutter.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Kagemusha]

1. That's a pretty serious outbreak.

And over a long period, too. Geez, who dropped the ball here!?

[Ilsa]

2. I know people on other boards who were reluctant to throw

their PB away because they hadn't gotten sick. I advised them to either take it back for a refund or toss it. Why take a chance?

I returned almost $8 in Peter Pan. That was two larger jars of the good stuff.

[ellenfl]

3. yup, i returned two small jars. unfortunately, jif is not as good. eom

[Eugene]

4. Reuters: US FDA confirms salmonella came from peanut butter

US FDA confirms salmonella came from peanut butter
24 Feb 2007 03:00:03 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning
that has sickened 329 people and sent 51 of them to the hospital was
definitely caused by contaminated Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter,
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.

The FDA has warned consumers not to eat any Peter Pan peanut butter
bought since May of last year and to throw out any Great Value brand --
sold by Wal-Mart Inc. <WMT.N> -- with the lot number 2111 on the lid.

"Product testing by several states has now confirmed that Peter Pan peanut
butter and certain Great Value brand peanut butter are the sources of the
foodborne illness outbreak of Salmonella Tennessee that began in August
2006," the FDA said in a statement released late on Friday.

"To date 329 individuals have become ill from consuming the contaminated
peanut butter, and 51 of those persons were hospitalized."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23329498.htm

[Synnical]

5. When is everyone going to realize that our food is dangerous?

How many outbreaks of disease is it going to take before US citizens start raising hell and demananding enforced government oversight? :eyes:

[bighughdiehl]

6. Wow

SO many outbreaks of this and that recently in our food supply.
I guess it was inevitable. So much processing and shipping of so much food for such a huge population. I commend those who have the motivation, skill, time and space to grow a lot of their own. At least you know where it's been.

[krispos42]

7. Well, there goes my jar

I can't remember when I bought it, but it's been a while. It's not worth risking my 2-year-old's life on.

<sigh> I gotta tell the ex, too. She shops at Wally World.

[Hekate]

8. Where's Upton Sinclair when you need him? "The Jungle" was published in 1906

My, how far we've come in a century. :sarcasm:
Hekate

> Upton Sinclair was a desperately poor, young
> socialist hoping to remake the world when he settled
> down in a tarpaper shack in Princeton Township and
> penned his Great American Novel.
>
> He called it "The Jungle," filled it with page after page
> of nauseating detail he had researched about the
> meat-packing industry, and dropped it on an astonished
> nation in 1906.
>
> An instant best-seller, Sinclair's book reeked with the
> stink of the Chicago stockyards. He told how dead rats
> were shoveled into sausage-grinding machines; how
> bribed inspectors looked the other way when diseased
> cows were slaughtered for beef, and how filth and guts
> were swept off the floor and packaged as "potted ham."
>
> In short, "The Jungle" did as much as any
> animal-rights activist of today to turn Americans into
> vegetarians.
>
> But it did more than that. Within months, the aroused
> -- and gagging -- public demanded sweeping reforms
> in the meat industry.
>
> President Theodore Roosevelt was sickened after
> reading an advance copy. He called upon Congress to
> pass a law establishing the Food and Drug
> Administration and, for the first time, setting up
> federal inspection standards for meat.

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1906.html