News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) heard various suggestions for improving its product recall procedures at a recent meeting, but there was no great push to give the USDA authority to order recalls of contaminated foods, according to a Minnesota official who attended.

Editor's note: This story was revised Nov 22 with additional information from federal agriculture and health officials.

(CIDRAP News) – A New Jersey company that recalled 200,000 pounds of poultry products Nov 2 has expanded the recall to 4.2 million pounds because a product sample collected Nov 14 was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this week.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced yesterday that it will begin testing environmental surfaces for Listeria in processing plants that produce deli meats and hot dogs unless the plants do their own tests and share the results with the USDA.

(CIDRAP News) – Recent meat recalls associated with a prolonged listeriosis outbreak show that the current federal program for keeping Listeria out of meatis falling short, Elsa Murano, the US Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for food safety, said in remarks prepared for a speech yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) Ð A second poultry processing plant has been linked by DNA fingerprinting to the multistate listeriosis outbreak in the Northeast, and two other plants are being investigated in connection with the outbreak, according to federal health officials.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials announced today that three environmental samples taken from a Pennsylvania poultry processing plant contained a Listeria strain matching that of patients in the current listeriosis outbreak in the Northeast. The announcement came 3 days after the company expanded its recall of turkey and chicken products from the original 295,000 pounds to a record-setting 27.4 million pounds.

(CIDRAP News) Ð A Pennsylvania company is recalling 295,000 pounds of ready-to-eat turkey and chicken because of possible Listeria contamination, but the recalled products have not been linked to the recent rash of listeriosis cases in the Northeast, federal health officials announced yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials say they believe deli turkey meat is the source of a listeriosis outbreak that dates back to midsummer and has grown to 43 cases in seven states, but they have not specified the source of the meat.

The outbreak stood at 43 cases in Pennsylvania and six other states yesterday, with seven deaths and three miscarriages or stillbirths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – A Milwaukee packing company has expanded its recall of ground beef over concern about potential Escherichia coli O157:H7 contamination and has temporarily closed one of its plants under pressure from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

(CIDRAP News) – More than 50 recent cases of E coli O157:H7 infection in Wisconsin and several other states may be linked with ground beef that was recalled last week by a company in Milwaukee, according to state and federal health officials.