As of Oct. 11, 317
persons from 20 states and Puerto Rico have been infected with seven outbreak
strains of Salmonella Heidelberg.
Forty-two
percent people who have become ill have been hospitalized, and no deaths have
been reported, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of
those who are ill, 73 percent, are from California.
Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback
investigations conducted by local, state, and federal officials indicate that eating
Foster Farms brand chicken is the likely source of this outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg infections,
according to the CDC.
On Oct. 7, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a Public
Health Alert due to concerns that illness caused by Salmonella Heidelberg was associated with chicken products produced
by Foster Farms at three facilities in California.
In the
alert, the USDA-FSIS said, at this point in the investigation, it was unable to link
the illnesses to a specific product and a specific production period. However,
the agency did say that raw products from the plants in question bear one of
the plant numbers inside a USDA mark of inspection or elsewhere on the package:
- “P6137”
- “P6137A”
- “P7632”
The products were
mainly distributed to retail outlets in California, Oregon, and Washington
state.
On Oct.
7, USDA-FSIS notified Foster Farms of the intent to withhold the marks of
inspection and suspend the assignment of inspectors at the three plants in
California unless the firm submitted plans to prevent the persistent recurrence
of Salmonella contamination.
The
investigation is ongoing, said the CDC, adding USDA-FSIS is prepared to take
additional actions or expand the investigation based on new evidence.
The outbreak strains of Salmonella Heidelberg are resistant to several commonly prescribed
antibiotics, the CDC said. This antibiotic resistance may be associated with an
increased risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected
individuals.
Since it’s not
unusual for raw poultry from any producer to have Salmonella bacteria, the CDC and USDA-FSIS recommend consumers
follow food safety tips to prevent Salmonella infection from raw poultry
produced by Foster Farms or any other brand.
On Oct.
10, USDA-FSIS announced that Foster Farms submitted and carried out immediate
changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations.
No Foster Farms
recall, but two companies recall its products
This is the second
outbreak of Salmonella in Foster
Farms products in a year. The company hasn’t issued a recall in either case,
rather is relying on informing consumers on how to cook raw chicken so any
possible pathogens are destroyed.
On Oct. 8, The Kroger Co. –
including Fred Meyer, Fry's, King Soopers/City Market, Ralphs, Food 4 Less,
Smith's, and QFC – responded to the USDA-FSIS public health alert on Salmonella Heidelberg by removing products
from the three plants from sale. The USDA-FSIS hasn’t linked other Foster Farms
facilities to the outbreak.
On Oct. 12, USDA-FSIS
announced Costco’s El Camino Real store
in San Francisco, Calif., is recalling 9,043 units – about 39,755 lbs. – of
rotisserie chicken products that may be contaminated with a strain of Salmonella Heidelberg.
The products included
in this recall are:
- 8,730 “Kirkland
Signature Foster Farms” rotisserie chickens.
- 313 total units of
“Kirkland Farm” rotisserie chicken soup, rotisserie chicken leg quarters, and
rotisserie chicken salad.
Consumer Reports
calls for recall
As part of its testing program of the safety of meat and
poultry, Consumer Reports found a strain of Salmonella
Heidelberg in a Foster Farms raw chicken sample that matched one of the strains
associated with the current illness outbreak.
USDA-FSIS has
oversight over meat and poultry production in the United States, however, they
don’t have authority to mandate a recall, except if a particular food is
directly identified as making someone sick. To date, USDA-FSIS hasn’t requested a voluntary
recall, and Consumer Reports, is calling on them to do so.
“It is outrageous that Foster Farms has not issued a recall
in the face of so many illnesses associated with their product,” said Urvashi
Rangan, Ph.D., toxicologist and executive director of the Consumer Reports Food
Safety and Sustainability Center.
“We are calling on Foster Farms and the retail outlets that
sell Foster Farms to recall the chicken processed at these plants,” Rangan said. “Foster
Farms has a responsibility to public health to take this step.”
