Posts Tagged ‘ Salmonella ’

Week Adjourned: 9.17.10

September 17th, 2010. By LucyC

Top Class Actions

Wright County Wrong Eggs. A class action lawsuit was filed this week against Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. This is the not so small footnote to the largest recall of contaminated eggs in recent history.

In fact, the lawyers who filed the class action believe that there may be as many as 76,000 class members, given that a recently enacted Egg Safety Rule states that for every case reported there may be 38 cases that go unreported. The FDA reports that at least 550 million eggs have been recalled so far. That’s a lot of scrambled eggs!

Wondering if you could be a class member? You qualify, apparently, if you purchased eggs from Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms from April 9, 2010 (Julian date 99) to August 21, 2010 (Julian date 230). Part of what the lawsuit is seeking is reimbursement for the purchasers.

But, the lawsuit also seeks recoveries on behalf of all consumers who died or were injured from salmonella enteriditis contaminated eggs. According to the press release, “The FDA reports that the salmonella infected eggs has sickened nearly 2,000 people… Infections from salmonella enteriditis can spread into the bloodstream, then to other areas of the body, such as the bone marrow or the meningeal linings of the brain. The infections can lead to severe and fatal injuries, including endocarditis. In addition, class members who recovered from salmonellosis may later develop recurring joint pain, reactive arthritis, and Reiter’s syndrome.”

Better check those eggs!

Top Settlements

Kodak Moment? Eastman Kodak has finally reached a settlement in the race discrimination class action brought against it by African American employees.

The settlement also reportedly resolves race discrimination claims made in a related case, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bayer, Egg Recall, Eggs, Hillandale Farms, Kodak, Salmonella, Trasylol, Wright County
Posted in Emerging Issues, Week Adjourned | 5020No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+9.17.102010-09-17+22%3A26%3A11LucyC

How do Eggs get Recalled for Salmonella?

August 30th, 2010. By Kristine B

Pleading Ignorance copy How do Eggs get Recalled for Salmonella?

If recent news about egg and meat recalls has you nervous about eating, well, anything, you might be interested in learning how a food recall is initiated. These food recalls are designed to keep consumers safe and healthy, although sometimes they cause panic in people who worry that the food supply system isn’t as safe as it should be. I’m not going to comment on how safe the food system is or isn’t. All I can do in this Pleading Ignorance post is explain how the meat and egg recall process works.

How do Eggs get Recalled for Salmonella? The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) operates within the US Department of Agriculture. Its job is to inspect and regulate meat, poultry and processed egg products that are produced in federally inspected plants. Basically, the job of the FSIS is to make sure that any meat, egg or processed egg products are safe and properly labeled. Foods that don’t fall into the meat, egg or processed egg product categories are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

A recall occurs when the product’s manufacturer or distributor voluntarily removes potentially hazardous food from the marketplace to protect the public’s health. All recalls are voluntary—even those initiated at the request of FSIS. If a company refuses to recall its products, the FSIS can seize the products.

Products can be recalled if they are believed to be hazardous to the public’s health (they can cause illness or death) or if they have been mislabeled (for example, if they contain ingredients not listed on the ingredients label).

According to the FSIS website (fsis.usda.gov), FSIS usually learns about hazardous or improperly labeled products from the manufacturer or distributor, from test results obtained by FSIS during its sampling program, from FSIS field inspectors or program investigators or through data submitted by other agencies. Once FSIS learns about a hazardous or improperly labeled product, the agency begins a preliminary investigation to determine whether or not the product should be recalled.

There are three classes of recall based on the risk to the public’s health:

Class I: there is reasonable probability that eating the food will cause illness or death (for example, the food is contaminated with E. coli bacterium);

Class II: there is a remote probability of adverse health affects from eating the food (for example, if a product contains an ingredient not included on the ingredients list but that can cause an allergic reaction); or

Class III: there are no health consequences from eating the food (for example, a product contains excess water, not included on the ingredients list, but the water will not cause any health problems).

People who are concerned about the lack of food safety might be happy to hear that a food safety bill is scheduled for a Senate vote in September. The bill, called the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, would give the FDA power to issue recalls and increase the frequency of factory inspections.

The USDA is not affected by the Food Safety Modernization Act; however, as of July 9, new rules gave the FDA power to inspect shell eggs once they leave the breaking facility (where they are broken and pasteurized).

Tags: Egg Recall, Food Poisoning, Pleading Ignorance, Salmonella
Posted in Pleading Ignorance | 4818No Comments »2010-08-30+19%3A51%3A59Kristine+B

Taming the Egg Salmonella Outbreak Will Take an Inside Job

August 30th, 2010. By Hunter West

blog hen2 Taming the Egg Salmonella Outbreak Will Take an Inside Job It’s ironic that just a month after new rules for egg safety came into effect, the US is hammered with one of the largest eggs recalls in its history due to salmonella poisoning. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been working on the portfolio for the better part of a decade before the rules were finally rolled out like so many Grade A extra large whites and browns.

It’s a further irony that during the 10 years or so when the FDA was mulling over the rules, a grand experiment in the UK was being met with stunning success.

And that’s where we go for the back-story.

A similar outbreak of salmonella in eggs hit Britain a little over a decade ago. While Brits stared en masse at their scrambled yellows and wondered if they were safe to eat, the British government assessed the available safety protocols—similar to what the FDA was already considering—and decided a more advanced step was required.

So they started vaccinating hens—essentially attacking the problem from the inside out, and the results were spectacular. Cases of salmonella infection have effectively disappeared. According to the latest data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, salmonella infections from eggs have dropped a stunning 96 percent since 1997. That represents a caseload of just Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Egg Recall, Food Poisoning, Salmonella
Posted in Emerging Issues | 4820No Comments »2010-08-30+17%3A57%3A08Hunter+West

What the heck is HVP? Demand better food labeling!

March 10th, 2010. By janem

food What the heck is HVP? Demand better food labeling! Dollars to donuts, you’ve consumed Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) and didn’t even know it because nobody informed you–it isn’t required on food labels–which makes this latest enormous recall a call to action. As if we don’t have enough to worry about with foodborne illness in the news just about daily, in the past few weeks the FDA has recalled thousands of products containing HVP–from beef and bacon to chips and dip to veggie burgers (so much for thinking processed vegetarian food is healthy) –that may be contaminated with Salmonella.

HVP, also known as acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein, is a soy-based food “filler” used to make countless processed food products. It is used as a flavor-enhancer after the food has been processed, and after it has been safety-checked. You likely never see HVP added to the ingredients list on a food label because it is usually part of a flavor mix. HVP is added so that your food tastes better, which means you will buy it again and that translates to profits for food companies such as Nestle, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, McCormick and many other companies. It is a chemical that we can do without!

Here is a list of recalled products.

According to Wikipedia, acid-hydrolyzed vegetable protein is produced by boiling cereals or legumes in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide. Next time I bite into chips with dip, I’ll be wondering how much hydrochloric acid is in my body. Wait a minute, what am I thinking? There isn’t gonna be a next time, unless the FDA does something about it. And judging from their history regarding food additives (remember aspartame?) I’ll be spending more time cooking from scratch and will likely lose a few pounds due to avoiding convenience foods. Because the FDA freaks out about bacteria, not the chemicals that are dumped into processed foods.

All of us need to petition the FDA and demand that chemicals such as HVP (god only knows what nasty side effects it can cause) are clearly listed on all food labels.

Meanwhile, health officials advise that you cook/heat the heck out of any processed food to avoid any risks of Salmonella. And if you can’t cook it, throw it out. Even better, return it to the food manufacturers. I wonder if they eat HVP-laced products?

Tags: food chemicals, food labelling, HVP, Salmonella
Posted in Food Illness | 29554 Comments »2010-03-10+22%3A15%3A25janem

Contaminated Chicken â€“ Not a Paltry Affair

December 7th, 2009. By LucyC

chicken Contaminated Chicken â€“ Not a Paltry Affair Here’s some rather unappetizing news—just in time for the holiday season. The results of a study that will be published in the upcoming edition of Consumer Reports, were being floated around the Internet last week, results which show that two thirds of store bought chickens are contaminated with pathogens that could make you very ill.

Apparently we should be grateful for this statistic, because it is markedly better than that of two years ago when eight out of 10 chickens were found to be contaminated with bacteria, including salmonella and campylobacter. (Even the names sound awful.)

As most of us are no doubt aware by now given the seemingly endless number of food recalls, salmonella, campylobacter, E. coli, and Listeria monocytogenes, to name the more common pathogens, can make us seriously ill. Food poisoning is the collective and rather vague term for the litany of physical ailments that includes vomiting, diarrhea, kidney failure, paralysis, seizures, hearing and visual impairment, and mental retardation. Worse, people have been known to die from food poisoning. Goodness knows it sure feels like death is imminent when have it.

Back to the study. The folks at ConsumerReports.org hired an independent lab to test 382 chickens that were purchased in the spring from over 100 supermarkets. Those stores included Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: campylobacter, chicken, Food Illness, Salmonella
Posted in Emerging Issues, Food Illness | 2101No Comments »2009-12-07+19%3A16%3A52LucyC