CDC investigating salmonella outbreak
Pastor Dale Morgan
CDC investigating salmonella outbreak*
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical WriterTue Oct 31, 1:36 PM ET
A salmonella outbreak potentially linked to produce has sickened at
least 172 people in 18 states, health officials said Monday.
Health officials think the bacteria may have spread through some form of
produce; the list of suspects includes lettuce and tomatoes. But the
illnesses have not been tied to any specific product, chain, restaurants
or supermarkets.
No one has died in the outbreak, which stems from a common form of
salmonella bacteria. Eleven people have been hospitalized, health
officials said.
"We're very early in the investigation," said Dave Daigle, a spokesman
for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Outbreaks of food-borne illness have repeatedly made headlines this
year. Certain brands of packaged spinach, lettuce, carrot juice, beef
and unpasteurized milk recently were recalled after they were found to
be tainted with illness-causing bacteria.
The most serious outbreak, first reported in September, involved spinach
tainted with E. coli bacteria that killed three people and sickened more
than 200.
The CDC detected the salmonella outbreak two weeks ago through a
national computer lab system that looks for patterns and matches in
reports of food-borne illness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has
joined the investigation and will try to help trace the outbreak to its
origin.
Most of the cases are in adults, and more than 60 percent are women,
said Dr. Chris Braden, a CDC epidemiologist investigating the outbreak.
The states involved are Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana,
Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New
Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia,
Vermont and Wisconsin.
Fifty-one cases reported in Massachusetts in September are the same
strain as that in the national outbreak, said Donna Rheaume, a
spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health. It was not immediately
clear whether those cases were in addition to the 172 reported nationwide.
Salmonella generally cause a nonfatal, diarrhea-causing illness. Other
symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, fever and headache.
There are about 2,500 types of salmonella. The type in this outbreak —
Salmonella typhimurium — is one of the most common, Braden said.
People can catch the infection from many different sources, including
water, soil, insects, factory surfaces, kitchen surfaces, animal feces,
and raw meats, poultry and seafoods.
Health officials estimate that more than 1.4 million cases of
salmonellosis occur in the U.S. each year. About 1.3 million of those
cases come from food, Braden said.
In California, where the E. coli outbreak was traced to, a trade group
on Monday proposed mandatory state food safety guidelines for lettuce
and spinach farmers and processors. The move by the Western Growers
Association would include inspections by state regulators and sanctions
for violators.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture, which would be
responsible for enforcement, has agreed to work with Western Growers in
developing a certification process that would give growers who meet the
guidelines a clean bill of health, said Thomas Nassif, the trade group's
president.
"It is not normal for a business to say, 'Please regulate us and enforce
it if we don't do the right things,'" Nassif said. "But that, we
believe, is essential to restore public confidence."
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Associated Press writer Lisa Leff in San Francisco contributed to this
report.