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Salmonella Prompts More Peanut Product Recalls

By PritzkerLaw

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has established a special web page to list all product recalls associated with the peanut butter Salmonella outbreak that has been associated with six deaths and more than 470 illnesses in 43 states.

Joining Kellogg Company with recalls of products containing potentially adulterated ingredients are HyVee Inc. of West Des Moines, Iowa; Perry's Ice Cream of Buffalo, N.Y.; and McKee Foods.

Fred Pritzker, whose law firm is one of the few in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation, has initiated a Peanut Corporation of America lawsuit for the heirs of Shirley Mae Almers, whose death helped lead Minnesota health investigators to the apparent source of the 4-month-old outbreak.

Peanut Corporation of America has since announced a broad product recall and temporarily closed its South Georgia peanut butter and peanut paste facility where Salmonella Typhimurium bacteria has been confirmed to exist in unopened containers that came from the plant. The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continue to investigate for an exact match to the outbreak strain of Salmonella.

Minnesota officials found a genetic match between the outbreak strain and Salmonella they found in an open container of King Nut creamy peanut butter that was in use at Mrs. Almers' long-term care facility .

The Minnesota finding led investigators from all over the country to look at Peanut Corporation of America and Ohio-based King Nut Companies, a distributor of peanut butter made at the South Georgia plant. Pritzker told the CBS affiliate WCCO-TV in the Twin Cities that Mrs. Almer, who died Dec. 21, was the "canary in the coal mine'' for scientsts investigating the outbreak. The wrongful death lawsuit is being filed in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis.

                                                   Investigation and Recalls        

 The FDA and CDC have said peanut butter sold at grocery stores for home use has not been associated with the outbreak.The peanut butter in question was sold to commercial food service accounts like nursing homes or used as an ingredient in other foods. Therefore, federal officials have warned consumers not to eat crackers, cookies, candies, ice cream, cakes and other products containing peanut butter or peanut paste as ingredients until a complete list of unsafe items is created.

Food companies that used Peanut Corporation of America as a supplier are checking to see if their products were made with peanut butter or peanut paste that has been recalled.

Kellogg Company was the first food company to announce a recall -- Keebler and Austin snack crackers containing peanut butter. Kellogg also has recalled 7 million snack packs of Famous Amos peanut butter cookies and Keebler Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter cookies.

On Sunday, McKee Foods recalled two Little Debbie peanut butter snack crackers made for McKee by Kellogg.

Other recalls have been made by Perry's Ice Cream of Buffalo, N.Y., and HyVee Inc. of West Des Moines, Iowa. HyVee's recall includes Lunchbox Reeses Pieces cookies and Peanut Butter Reese's Pieces cookies. 

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on January 18, 2009 (boomark / email).