Finally, We are Told What Meat May Be Responsible for All the Salmonella Food Poisoning

A few days ago, I wrote about the most recent salmonella outbreak that invaded multiple states since March without any answers as to what was causing it. Well, we may finally have some answers as to what is causing it.

Or do we?

On Wednesday, almost 150 days after the first salmonella illness was reported, the Agriculture Department notified Minnesota-based Cargill to recall 36 million pounds of ground turkey. Their basis for doing this was because the meat from Cargill has been linked to at a minimum, 77 illnesses and at least one death so far. In my last blog, I reported that Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, California and Pennsylvania had the highest amount of salmonella cases, but it was recently reported by the CDC that twenty other states, including Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin, have also been affected.

All of the packages that have been recalled have the code “Est. P-963”. But, here is the problem. According to Cargill, their turkey meat products were labeled under many different brand names. Right now, many of the potentially contaminated turkey meat packages and recalled meat are also under the label of Honeysuckle White, Riverside Ground Turkey, Natural Lean Ground Turkey, Fit & Active Lean Ground Turkey, Shady Brook Farms Ground Turkey Burgers, as well as HEB, Safeway, Kroger, Tom Thumb and Giant Eagle grocery store brands. But wait, it does not stop there.

There is also some ground turkey that isn’t labeled, and according to Cargill, that meat went to food service establishments. That means that restaurants, deli’s, caterers, schools, pre-schools, summer camps, lunch trucks, and fast food places may also have the contaminated meat and is serving it to customers and there is no way to track where this infected meat went? So, in other words, do we REALLY know where this salmonella contaminated meat is? Even though it was recalled, how can it be recalled or returned since some of it is not labeled or coded? I think just to be on the safe side for right now, I will risk raising my cholesterol, switch to red meat and avoid any turkey meat until this is all figured out.

The CDC estimates that over 50 million Americans get sick each year from food poisoning and approximately 3,000 of those infected, die from food poisoning. Salmonella causes most of the food poisoning cases and federal health officials feel that the have not made any progress against it.

If you are infected with the salmonella bug, you may experience symptoms as early as eight hours after ingesting the tainted food or up to seventy two hours after eating the contaminated food. Salmonella food poisoning can cause diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, vomiting, dehydration and even death. The elderly, children, and pregnant women are at a higher risk of developing problems due to a salmonella infection.

Since 1957, the highly experienced medical and legal teams here at the Beasley product liability law firm have been successfully representing people who have suffered from food poisoning as well as family members of those who have died because of it. Our product liability attorneys in Philadelphia have reviewed thousands of cases where someone became violently ill after eating something and it led to severe dehydration or even a wrongful death. If you or a loved one has suffered or died from food poisoning, please feel free to contact one of the nurses, doctors or attorneys on our food poisoning team for a risk free, strictly confidential consultation.