A Foster Farms plant associated with a Salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 400 people reopened today after a brief closure. The plant in Livingston, CA resumed operations this morning. The plant, one of three Foster Farms facilities associated with a Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak that sickened at least 430 people in 23 states and Puerto Rico, remained open for most of the time the outbreak was ongoing. The outbreak, one of two linked to Foster Farms last year, began in March and was announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in October. On January 16, the agency said the outbreak was likely over. On January 8, about one week before the CDC said the outbreak had ended, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS) … [Read more...]
USDA Tells Staff Not to Interfere with Poultry Industry Voluntary Pathogen Reduction Effort
Food & Water Watch has obtained an internal email by the USDA regarding a new data collection effort by the National Chicken Council. According to the email, The National Chicken Council is spearheading an effort to "collect samples from chicken parts from most all poultry establishments in order to collectively work on voluntary pathogen reduction performance goals that the industry will self-impose using their own industry-wide aggregate data." The email, dated January 17, 2014 and sent to USDA-FSIS district managers, states that the USDA approves of the National Chicken Council effort and does not want in-plant USDA-FSIS inspectors and field supervisors to question this effort or to take steps to force poultry processing plants to turn over the results of the sampling. The email … [Read more...]
Salmonella Should be an Adulterant
In the world of food safety, many dangerous pathogens are controlled through HACCP plans, regulation, and inspections by the FDA and USDA. Of course pathogens are ubiquitous in the world. But food should not be sold to the public that is so contaminated with pathogenic bacteria that it makes people sick. At this time, just a few bacteria are considered "adulterants" in food. That means companies are not allowed to sell certain types of food that contain these bacteria. Those are E. coli O157:H7 and the other Big Six STEC bacteria; Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods, and Salmonella in ready-to-eat foods. Salmonella in all other foods? Not an adulterant. Salmonella outbreaks have become common in this country. In the latest outbreak involving Foster Farms chicken, the … [Read more...]
USDA: Insanitary Conditions at Foster Farms Prior to Roaches, Outbreak
The cockroaches of Foster Farms grabbed all the attention this week for giving the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the technical reason is needed to close one of three plants associated with a multi-state Salmonella outbreak that has sickened 419 people: "insanitary conditions." The problem is that the USDA knew there were cockroaches and other insanitary conditions at the plant before the outbreak was announced months ago. A reasonable person might ask why producing food contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella isn't reason enough to halt production at a poultry processing plant. The answer, in part, is that Salmonella isn't considered an adulterant of meat (only seven kinds of E.coli are) so, it's not illegal to produce meat or poultry with Salmonella on it. The other … [Read more...]
CDC: Antibiotic Resistance a Looming Health Threat in 2014
Antibiotic resistance is one of the top five public health threats looming in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 2 million Americans are sickened with antibiotic-resistant infections every year, some as a result of food poisoning. Drug-resistant non-typhoidal Salmonella strains, or Salmonella strains other than Typhi, Paratyphi A, Paratyphi B, and Paratyphi C, are considered by the CDC to be a "serious" health threat. About 8 percent of cases from these strains, or 100,000 of the 1.2 million annual U.S. cases of food poisoning from non-typhoidal Salmonella, are antibiotic resistant. Antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella cause infections that are more severe, more likely to require hospitalization and less likely to be treated … [Read more...]
