Health Law

Sprouts and Salmonella . . . Again

By Marler Clark

Sprouts have done it again.  This time in Michigan.  The Michigan Department of Community Health is telling people to avoid consuming alfalfa sprouts due to potential contamination by Salmonella bacteria.  To date, as best as I can tell, there are at least 16 illnesses, including two hospitalizations, in Wayne, Macomb, Oakland Counties and the City of Detroit. 

I guess the good thing about people continuing to eat sprouts is that it gives us countless opportunities to tell people that they shouldn't eat them.  See these recent posts:

Salmonella and Sprouts--CW Sprouts Outbreak

Amalgamated Sprouts Outbreak--Listeria

The Michigan Department of Community Health is certainly doing its constituents a service by the recent admonishment to avoid sprouts.  But really, the proper advice for the food-consuming public to take shouldn't be limited to the wake of an outbreak when it's already too late.  Sprouts are too-frequently implicated in outbreaks of foodborne disease for my taste.   

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).