Ground Beef Recall: Two Deaths Could Be Linked To E. Coli Contamination

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Contaminated fresh ground beef caused a possible E. coli outbreak that killed two people and sent 16 others to hospitals, federal health officials said Monday.

Twenty-eight people may have become ill after eating beef produced by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, N.Y., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. All but three of the suspected infections are in the northeastern U.S. and 18 are in New England, said CDC spokeswoman Lola Scott Russell.

Fairbank Farms recalled almost 546,000 pounds of fresh ground beef that had been distributed in September to stores from North Carolina to Maine. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's recall notice, dated Saturday, said the possibly tainted meat had been sold in numerous ways, from meatloaf and meatball mix to hamburger patties.

One of the deaths was an adult from Albany County, N.Y., who had several underlying health conditions, according to the state Health Department. The other fatality was previously reported by New Hampshire, where health officials said a patient died of complications.

The CDC did not specify the states where people were hospitalized. Kidney failure is found in the most severe cases of E. coli. In less serious cases, the potentially deadly bacterium can cause bloody diarrhea and dehydration.

Some of the ground beef was sold at Trader Joe's, Price Chopper, Lancaster, Wild Harvest, Shaw's, BJ's, Ford Brothers and Giant stores in packages that carried the number "EST. 492" on the label. Those products were packaged Sept. 15-16 and may have been labeled with a sell-by date from Sept. 19 through Sept. 28, meaning they're no longer being sold as fresh product in supermarkets, Fairbank Farms said.

The rest of the ground beef, packaged in wholesale-sized containers under the Fairbank Farms name, was distributed to stores in Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. That meat was likely repackaged for sale and would likely have differing package and sell-by dates.

The USDA was urging customers with concerns to contact the stores where they bought the meat.

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Ron Allen, Fairbank's CEO, urged consumers to check their freezers for the recalled ground beef.

Companies subject to such recalls are allowed to cook tainted meat to kill the bacteria and then use it in other products, a common practice in the food industry.

That won't happen in this case, the company said.

"At the end of the day, this product ... is going in the garbage," said company spokeswoman Agi Schafer.

Located in the southwestern corner of New York a few miles from the Pennsylvania line, Fairbank Farms has had two other voluntary recalls over the last two years, according to the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

In September 2007, the company recalled 884 pounds of ground beef products because they may have been contaminated with E. coli, the agency said. And in May 2008, it recalled 22,481 pounds of ground beef products that may have contained pieces of plastic.

Symptoms of E. coli infections usually show up three to four days after a person eats contaminated food, although in some cases it can be as long as eight days. Officials said anyone having symptoms should immediately contact a doctor.

Russell, the CDC spokeswoman, said the E. coli strain involved in the recall, 0157:H7, infects about 70,000 Americans a year and kills 52.

After dropping for a few years, annual recalls of ground beef and other beef products contaminated with E. coli have rebounded, with at least a dozen recalls through October 2009, according to USDA data.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York wants federally mandated E. coli inspections of all ground beef.

"This is a stark reminder that food is still going straight to our kitchens and grocery stores without being properly tested to ensure its safety," Gillibrand said. "It's spreading too many diseases and costing too many lives. ... It's time to address the gaps in the inspection process."

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Associated Press writer Jessica M. Pasko contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.

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On the Net:

http://www.fairbankfarms.com/

Comments

[Terry S Singeltary Sr]

WHY are parents all across the Nation not up in arms over the infamous dog and pony show the USDA et al put on about the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. Beef Recall. This was at the time, the USA largest beef recall ever, all under the guise of animal abuse, when in fact it was child abuse. For 4 years, in schools all across our Nation, our children were fed the most high risk cattle for mad cow disease and other deadly pathogens. This is a disease that will not kill you over night. It's a long incubating disease, that once exposed, and then years later, for those that go clinical, it is 100% fatal. mad cow disease has been systematically covered up in the USA for over a decade, and we are still feeding cows to cows in 2009. my question, who will watch all these children for CJD over the next 5 DECADES ???

SEE AFFECTED SCHOOLS ;

School Food Authorities Affected by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. Beef Recall February 2006 – February 2008

http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/safety/Hallmark-Westland_byState.pdf

SEE HISTORY ;

http://downercattle.blogspot.com/2009/11/seac-effect-of-age-on-pathogenesis-of.html

http://downercattle.blogspot.com/


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

BSE RISK USA UPDATE NOVEMBER 2009


http://bseusa.blogspot.com/2009/11/bse-risk-usa-update-november-2009.html


TSS

[arabianway]

This latest beef recall should surprise no one. These huge slaughterhouse/meatpacking plants CANNOT keep some fecal contamination from all their products.

A hamburger does not come from the flesh of just one animal either. There are bits and pieces of many, many animals in that burger. Furthermore, the bits and pieces in those preformed patties sold in bigbox stores probably came from animals slaughtered in several different COUNTRIES.

Still sound OK to you? Don't claim you didn't have the information which is readily available on the web and elsewhere if you get sick from eating this stuff.

[amber15]

eating this junk is stupid!!
when will you people WAKE UP and see how this meat is nothing but crap

[MyWhiteHouse]

WHERE ARE THE JOBS YOU PROMISED, OBAMMI?

good articles: http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

[amber15]

where is your mind????

find that first and the rest will follow...

[Sub Libertate Quietum]

"...Fairbank Farms has had two other voluntary recalls over the last two years, according to the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service."

Consumers should investigate which stores decided to continue to carry products furnished by this company and reconsider whether or not they want to shop there anymore.

Seems to me their profits outweigh your life.

[kanglecap]

" ... we are sick of war, we do not want to fight, and yet we gorge ourselves upon the DEAD."
... George Bernard Shaw

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." ... Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know how to eradicate 100% of the E. coli contracted from eating meat ... STOP EATING MEAT!

Animal flesh is bad for our health, bad for the planet and, let's see, oh yes, bad for the animal!

For those who espouse that "we have to kill to sustain life", to them I point out that eating the FRUIT of a tree, for example, does NOT kill the tree!

Those who want to be a "walking graveyard" for these animals have that right and I would be the first in line to fight for that right. But why anyone would want to be party to such gruesome acts (the killing and the eating) is way beyond my understanding.

[DandaPanda]

you are gonna get all those rotting flesh eaters mad...

[kanglecap]

It won't be the first time!

[DandaPanda]

Just say NO to beef

[pj-smith]

monsanto, monsanto....my post was ditched.....

[jsarets]

Studies show that even by replacing just the last two weeks of corn-based cattle feed with grass results in a 90% reduction in E. coli counts at slaughter.

For cows, corn is a strongly prebiotic feed, meaning it stimulates the rapid growth of bacteria in their digestive tracts, much like beans do in humans, but more dramatically.

Cows aren't evolved to digest corn properly. The more aggressive E. coli strains that have emerged in the past 20 years evolved to take advantage of this situation. They process undigested corn polysaccharides into carbon dioxide and methane, greatly increasing the greenhouse gas emissions from beef production and producing solid waste with exceptionally high bacteria counts.

As a matter of public safety, the USDA should immediately phase in regulations requiring beef producers to replace corn-based feed with grass, starting from the end of the production cycle and working backward toward the milk-fed calves until all beef is raised on grass.

[NevadaPatriot]

Interesting.

The other issue with regard to the cattle industry is downer cows.

[jsarets]

Indeed. I suspect that many downer cows result from severe dehydration from diarrhea or parasites, either of which could be caused by eating too much of their own waste. The cows basically live knee deep in waste and have the typical mammalian instinct to clean themselves by licking.

[wheresthetruth]

We can bail out the financial world in record time and come up with the billions needed to fight a couple of needless wars but we can't staff the FDA and give it the spine it needs to protect our food supply?!?

This is madness. Unfortunately, it is representative of the way this country approaches just about everything.

I am so discouraged.

[Raster]

I do not eat ground beef any more. If people have to eat it, they should buy a meat grinder and grind their own from scratch. And then cook it thoroughly (well done).

[jsarets]

But carefully clean your meat grinders, because they are notorious for being breeding grounds for harmful bacteria. I use a food processor instead, because it's easier to clean, and I think it makes a better texture for burgers anyway.

[KataVideo]

It's what's for dinner!

[Gumpster]

Maybe we should also look for a way to more quickly identify tainted meat. Based on the sell by date of September 19th, most of the meat has already been consumed - which seems very convenient for the producer! By testing and identifying problem meat faster, we could actual prevent consumption of it. What a concept!

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

Read up on E coli (doesn't take much to make you sick and it would be easy to miss when you sample 1000 lbs.). Testing will hardly make a dent in the problem if they don't clean up the problem processing. Generally you aren't going to catch it until multiple people get sick and the health authorities can pinpoint the source. All that takes time. But I would never knowingly eat boxed ground beef without it being cooked to a inedible disc.Maybe in a nice long-simmered taco mix...

[AZterritory]

Good buddy from my childhood is a veterinarian who works for the FDA inspecting slaughterhouses--he's a vegetarian.

[NevadaPatriot]

Meat scraps should be tested prior to being turned into hamburger.

Then Hamburger should be tested after grinding.

And they should test the grinder at regular intervals for bacteria.

Why the industry continually resists this is beyond me.

[KataVideo]

"Why the industry continually resists this is beyond me."

Please allow me to explain with a single character: $

[HotheadPaisen]

Costco is the only big buyer who will not purchase ground meat from suppliers who do not test the scraps (often procured from multiple slaughterhouses in different countries) before they're all ground together.
The industry's official word on their utterly reckless disregard for our safety is this, "They wouldn't sell to us if they knew we tested their products." I swear.
How totally and completely eff'ed up are our priorities here?

[NevadaPatriot]

Nope your wrong. The costs of increasing your quality control are minimal compared to the benefits.

[mbondr1]

If they tested the meat on congressmen, they maybe we'd see results.

They should just sell the meat out of the trucks, that way they would save money reloading it when people get sick. Or put big rubber bands on the packages so one end can stay attached to the slaughterhouses. Then they could just cut a string and the packages would snap back. Or how about beef condoms so the meat doesn't actually come in contact with your body?