Montclair Meat Ground Beef Tainted With E. coli O157:H7
More than 50,000 pounds of potentially E. coli-tainted ground beef products are being recalled by Montclair Meat Co., Inc, of Montclair, California, according to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
The E coli ground beef recall involves packages with the establishment number “Est. 6116″ on the label and the meat was produced between May 3 and May 13, 2010. The ground beef products were distributed to retailers and government establishments for further processing in the Los Angeles area. The products include:
- Various pound packages of “MONTCLAIR MEAT CO. GROUND BEEF”
- Various pound packages of “MONTCLAIR MEAT CO. ALL BEEF PATTIES”
FSIS discovered the E. coli O157:H7 contamination in the meat through microbiological sampling. More detailed retail and distribution information will be posted here, if and when it becomes available.
E. coli is a serious foodborne illness that can cause serious gastrointestinal symptoms including severe abdominal pain and bloody diarrhea. It can develop into more serious complications including hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which can cause kidney failure and other serious, ongoing medical conditions. The food poisoning attorneys at Pritzker Olsen law firm have extensive experience representing victims of serious foodborne illnesses including E. coli O147:H7 and E. coli HUS. If you or a loved one suspect you’ve contracted and E. coli infection, be sure to visit the doctor and ask to be tested for that specific pathogen. Those sickened by foodborne illness may have a legal case against the food producers, distributors and others.
Recalled WinCo Beef Sold in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington
California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Director Dr. Mark Horton has warned consumers not to eat ground beef products being recalled by WinCo Food stores. The recalled ground beef may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a dangerous pathogen that can cause hemolytic anemia, hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and thrombotic thrombocytopenic pupura (TTP).
The recalled ground beef was sold at WinCo Food stores in California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The ground beef is packaged in Styrofoam trays and the packaging is marked with sale dates from March 28 to April 9.
Earlier this month WinCo recalled some ground beef products sold by its Modesto store after two surveillance samples tested positive for E. coli O157:H7. Friday, an additional surveillance sample tested positive for E. Coli 0157:H7. No illnesses have been linked to the recalled ground beef products at this time.
The CDPH warns:
Consumers with recalled products should either throw the product away or return it to the point of purchase for a refund. Under no circumstances, should consumers eat this recalled beef.
Expanded WinCo E. coli Hamburger Recall
Customers at WinCo Foods should be aware of a widening ground beef E. coli recall and associated investigation by USDA and the California Department of Public Health.
It started last week with an E. coli recall of fresh hamburger at a Winco-owned store in Modesto. Now the company is urging customers at all 70 of its stores in California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Nevada to avoid WinCo store-packaged ground beef with sale dates of March 28-April 9.
A USDA spokesman, Neil Gaffney, told the Modesto Bee newspaper that the agency has launched a traceback investigation involving WinCo’s suppliers to determine where the ground beef E. coli contamination first occurred. It is illegal in the United States to sell ground beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, which Congress has declared an adulterant.
No confirmed illnesses have been associated with the recall, but health officials are urging WinCo ground beef customers to see a physician immediately if they suffer bloody stools, severe cramps, diarrhea and other E. coli symptoms.
Ground beef E. coli Traceback Investigations To Get Tougher Under USDA Initiative
TheUSDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is poised to implement new, more aggressive traceback procedures when meat samples at grinding plants test positive for E. coli O157:H7.
Currently FSIS acknowledges that its traceback investigations are less robust when there is no outbreak of illness associated with a positive test result at a further processing plant.
FSIS said its plan is to speed up and expand efforts to find the original source of contamination and any other contaminated products when E coli O157:H7 is found in routine ground beef testing.
Under the new protocol, traceback investigations will begin immediately when FSIS gets a preliminary or “presumptive” finding of E. coli in routine testing of ground beef. That will provide investigators a two-day jump. The current approach is to wait 48 hours for the presumptive test to be confirmed.
“We intend to identify all affected product and the potential suppliers earlier in the process and to respond more rapidly to protect the public health,” FSIS official Judy Riggins said at the meeting.
Riggins said that if the sample of contaminated ground beef included materials from several suppliers, inspectors will go to all suppliers.
Dr. Daniel Engeljohn of FSIS said at the meeting last month that the issue is the degree to which the agency traces the source ofE. coli when samples test positive.
“It is a difference in how we do it with an investigation related to illness,” Engeljohn said. ” What we announced today is a substantive change to more thoroughly investigate traceback to the slaughter supplier more so than what we do today.”
The change, however, will not stop Montana Senator John Tester from proceeding with a bill that would require the FSIS to trace E. coli contamination to the original source — not just the butcher shop or processing facility that sold trimmings to a grinding plant. He has maintained that investigations stop before they get to the original slaughter facility where E. coli most likely was introduced.
E. coli O157:H7 is a dangerous human pathogen that grows harmlessly in the guts of cattle. The organisms exit in manure that can lodge on an animal’s hide. At slaughter, it can flake off the hide and contaminate meat. It’s also possible for E. coli to splatter onto cuts of meat if intestines are cut.
Cooking meat to 160 degrees kills E. coli, but temperatures don’t always reach that high inside a ground beef hamburger or meatball, especially when hamburgers are cooked on a grill. Color is not an indicator of doneness.
Once consumed, E. coli O157:H7 microbes emit a powerful toxin that causes extremely painful stomach cramps, nausea, fever and diarrhea, often bloody. In five to 15 percent of cases, patients develop life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) orthrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). In a given year, about 60 Americans will die fromE. coli and more than 70,000 are hospitalized.
Iowa E coli Restaurant Issue Defies Common Sense
In a public debate in Iowa that defies common sense, some legislators are considering exempting an old-fashioned restaurant in Marshalltown from safe food handling requirements.
Taylor’s Maid Rite makes sandwiches with loose ground beef, sloppy joe style. Against state health code, the Marshalltown restaurant places raw ground beef in the same vessel holding cooked meat that is scooped onto sandwiches.
Even though the CEO of Maid-Rite Corp. says the old-time method is unsafe, the owner of the Marshalltown Maid-Rite is asking to be exempt from having to convert to a method that would prevent E. coli cross-contamination.
One of the restaurant’s advocates is Representative Mark Smith, a Democrat from Marshalltown, who says he eats at the restaurant frequently. The chain has a long history dating to the 1920s and has not been connected in the past with any ground beef E. coli outbreak.
But quaint notions about preserving old-fashioned kitchen methods are foolish when E. coli contamination is even a remote possibility. E. coli O157:H7 is nothing to toy with. The pathogen kills an estimated 60 people a year in the United States and ground beef is the most common vehicle for transmission. Restaurants don’t control the slaughter process that leads to E. coli contamination in beef and even if every batch of meat is tested for the pathogen, tests are not foolproof.
Even when death is not the outcome, more than 5 percent of the approximately 70,000 people a year who fall victim to E. coli infection develop a complication known as HUS E. coli, or hemolytic uremic syndrome. The microbes of E. coli emit a powerful toxin that attack red blood cells and HUS commonly results in kidney failure and can cause paralysis, stroke, heart problems and other long-term health problems. Children are more likely to become victims of HUS E coli than adults.
E. coli infection also is associated with a similarly dangerous condition known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura , or TTP, more common in adults.
Iowa legislators should listen to the scientific advice of state health officials who have testified against the measure that would allow this dangerous set-up at certain Maid-Rites to continue.
