alfalfa-sproutsThe Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has been working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Kansas Department of Agriculture and the Oklahoma Department of Health to investigate an outbreak of Salmonella linked to sprouts.

Five people in Kansas have become ill as part of

P311dhecAccording to the CDC and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, five patients who were treated in a single hospital (Via Christi Saint Francis) in Kansas were infected with one of four rare strains of Listeria monocytogenes. Illness onset dates range from January 2014 to January 2015. Thus far five were sickened and three

Bill Marler made history with the horrendous 1993 Jack in the Box food poisoning outbreak. Marler represented the most seriously ill child, Brianne Kiner. Four children died and hundreds were sickened by under-cooked E. coli:O157 tainted hamburgers. It was the beginning of a long, battle to not only represent victims, but also advocate for tougher food safety laws.

It has been a busy week in the press:

The New Yorker:  A Bug in the System

Why last night’s chicken made you sick.

BY WIL S. HYLTON:  February 2, 2015

A lawyer is leading the fight to keep contaminated food off the supermarket shelf.
Continue Reading KTCS 9 INCLOSE – Bill Marler – Food Safety Warrior

“Unprecedented” Settlement Could Mean Jail Time for Elder DeCoster

Host Ben Kieffer talks with Seattle, Washington food safety lawyer Bill Marler, who represented some of those sickened in a 2010 salmonella outbreak caused by contaminated eggs.  This week a settlement was reached with Quality Egg and two of its top executives, Jack and Peter DeCoster. 

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),

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

As of May 16, 2014, a total of 11 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC O157:H7) have been reported from 4 states.The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Massachusetts (1), Michigan (5), Missouri (1), and Ohio (4).60% of ill persons have been hospitalized.