The large West Coast Salmonella outbreak associated with Foster Farms Chicken — announced on Monday — is the second big set of Salmonella poisonings associated with the brand in 15 months. The first outbreak, which began June 1, 2012, sickened 132 people in 13 states, according to the “final update” provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in July of this year. That one was centered heavily in the Pacific Northwest: Washington, 57 cases; Oregon, 40; Alaska, 13; and California, 11, according to the CDC’s Morbitity and Mortality Weekly Report dated July 12, 2013.
Three months later, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is issuing a public health alert warning the public that raw Foster Farms chicken from three plants is associated with 278 illnesses in 18 states, “predominantly California.” The potentially tainted chicken is marked with one of three establishment numbers inside a USDA mark of inspection or elsewhere on the package: “P6137” “P6137A” “P7632”.
In both outbreaks, people have been sickened and hospitalized in many cases with infections of Salmonella Heidelberg.
The repeated and prolonged contamination of chicken by a single manufacturer has prompted national food safety Fred Pritzker to question how thoroughly federal officials inspected Foster Farms after the first outbreak. A government document that originated from the first outbreak said USDA sent an “incident investigation team” to one Foster Farms slaughter establishments. But the results of that investigation have not been publicly released.
“It’s time for the USDA to share its findings,” said Pritzker, whose law firm has won tens of millions of dollars for victims of Salmonella outbreaks, including patients who suffered long-term health consequences as a result of their infections. “Salmonella Heidelberg should have been wiped out from these plants after the first outbreak.”
