May 2014

Collaborative investigation efforts of state, local, and federal public health and regulatory agencies indicate that organic sprouted chia powder distributed by Navitas Naturals of Novato, California is the likely source of what he CDC reports as a total of 12 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Newport reported from 7 states: Arizona (1),

Ken Carlson of the Modesto Bee reports that Foster Farms is suing Orkin LLC, charging the pest control company was to blame for cockroaches that resulted in a three-day shutdown of its Livingston poultry facility in January.  The lawsuit, filed late last month in Merced County Superior Court, claims that Orkin should pay damages for

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, the nonprofit food safety watchdog group, is asking the court to require USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to respond to a three-year-old regulatory petition in which CSPI urged the agency to treat antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella as adulterants in order to prevent the sale and distribution

Yet another reason to hate insurance companies.

Law360 reports that Maryland Casualty Co. has asked a Pennsylvania federal court Friday to limit its liability to $2 million for its insured’s, Fallon Trading Co.’s, role in brokering a shipment of pomegranate seeds from Untied Juice/ GoKnur from Turkey that sickened 162 consumers with hepatitis A and

The CDC reports this evening that another 50 have been added to the Foster Farm’s illness column since April 2014.

Since March 1, 2013, a total of 574 individuals infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Heidelberg have been reported from 27 states and Puerto Rico. Most of the ill persons (76%) have been reported

Gary T. Kubota, reporter at the Star Adveritser, reported that about 100 guests and workers at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel fell sick from an infectious virus — called norovirus — about two weeks ago.

I stayed there a few years ago with my daughters.  While I gave a speech at a food safety conference, my

Fuego’s Tortilla Grill Restaurant voluntarily shut down today amid an investigation by the Brazos County Health Department into an outbreak of a food-borne illness.  Health department officials said they started looking into a cluster of Salmonella Typhimurium-Ohio serotype cases in September 2013 and have documented 30 cases with 26 being residents of Brazos County or