It was 2009 the last time we made it this far into the year without a multistate food poisoning outbreak being announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of course, that doesn’t mean that one hasn’t happened or isn’t happening right now, it just means the CDC hasn’t told anyone about it.
The CDC publishes a list of “selected multistate food poisoning outbreaks” each year. The rest fly under the radar. For the last five years ,there have been about 10 announced multistate food poisoning outbreaks, with the first one occurring between January and March. Not April, like 2009’s first, a Salmonella outbreak associated with pistcahios.
The new year was still new when last year’s first outbreak was announced, a Salmonella outbreak linked to cashew cheese. That outbreak, which sickened 17 people in three states, was announced on Januray 3, 2014. Three people were hospitalized.
Although most of the illnesses occurred during November 2013, the last reported date of onset of illness was January 3. Fifteen of the cases were reported in California. Nevada and Wyoming each reported one case.
Fifty-three percent of case patients, who ranged in age from 2 years to 83 years old, were male. The median age was 27.
Public health investigators used pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) testing to obtain a DNA “fingerprint” of the outbreak strain. The tests determined that the outbreak strain of Salmonella Stanley had only been seen 20 times prior to the outbreak.
In 2013, the first multistate outbreak announced by the CDC was also a Salmonella outbreak. But this time the food was ground beef. That six-state outbreak sickened 22 people, hospitalizing seven.
Recalls were issued by Jouni Meats Inc. of Sterling Heights, MI and Gab Halal Foods of Troy, MI. Wisconsin with eight cases and Michigan with nine were hardest hit by the outbreak. Case counts in other states were as follows: Arizona (1), Iowa (1), Illinois (2) and Pennsylvania (1).
