Health Law

E. coli O157:H7 Hamburger Outbreak Expands to New Hampshire and Ten other States - What the Hell is up?

By Marler Clark LLP

New Hampshire with two ill and one death, joins Maine, Massachusetts (at least three ill), Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and likely Rhode Island (at least twenty ill) in a growing E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to over 546,000 pounds of hamburger produced by Fairbank Farms of New York and distributed via retail outlets including Trader Joe's, Price Chopper, Lancaster, Wild Harvest, Shaw's, BJ's, Ford Brothers, and Giant.

With the recent recall of 1,039 pounds of hamburger contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 in Massachusetts, and the additional 546,000 pounds of hamburger recalled in New York, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today, hamburger recalls since 2007 have now reached 41,958,504 pounds (from about 150,000 in 2006). And, this is not counting another recall from 2008. Then, Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., a Chino, California establishment, voluntarily recalled approximately 143,383,823 pounds of raw and frozen beef products that FSIS had determined to be unfit for human food because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection.

Full post as published by e.Coli Blog on October 31, 2009 (boomark / email).