When lawyers talk about “the smoking gun,” we are usually talking documents, not finding genetically matching Salmonella Enteriditis samples at Wright County Egg and in its chicken feed – but that will work too.
So, where are we? The FDA and Wright County Egg Recall number is still 550,000,000, which was announced August 15. And
![smokingegg[1].jpg](https://www.marlerblog.com/uploads/image/smokingegg%5B1%5D.jpg)
Rodent feces are the usual source
Test results from environmental samples at Wright County Egg – one of two related companies believed to have supplied Salmonella – contaminated eggs now under nationwide recall – showed strains of the bacteria with the same DNA fingerprint seen in clinical isolates. Chicken feed at facilities supplying Iowa-based Wright
According to press reports, late yesterday afternoon a federal judge recommended approval of a $12 million settlement for those sickened or killed in last year’s salmonella outbreak tied to a Virginia-based peanut processor. This includes nearly 50 families represented by Marler Clark.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Urbanski issued his recommendation late Wednesday for the
Just off the wire from AP:
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on the recall Sep 14. They are inviting Austin “Jack” DeCoster, the head of Wright County Egg, and Orland Bethel, the head of Hillandale Farms. The two farms have recalled more than 550 million eggs after they were linked
It has been a busy morning in the food safety business. I was supposed to do a live interview via TV on CNN, but missed the 5:25 ferry to Seattle (it is actually at 5:20). Thankfully, they let me do a phone in. I am now off to San Francisco to visit with the Rivera
I had the pleasure of discussing Salmonella-tainted Eggs the other evening on Larry King Live with several other interesting guests.
Honestly, I am not sure what I would do (or what the public does) without the solid research by Ms. Entis (efoodalert) on her famous “Recall Round-ups” and setting out the scope of this Salmonella Enteriditis outbreak. It is good to know where the eggs are poisoned and the people are sick. Here
I spoke to Mina Kimes about her article, “Egg recall is a golden opportunity to whip food safety into shape,” that appeared in Fortune and CNN this morning about my view of the need to give the CDC more resources to catch foodborne or bioterrorism outbreak sooner. I had blogged about how needed the new
With 550,000,000 eggs being recalled from 18 states and the number of ill flirting with 2,000, we understandably are not only focusing on the “how did it happen?” but, also “how this could have been prevented?”
State Ag and Federal (USDA/FSIS and FDA) authorities seem to be going out of their way to let us know that no one was inspecting the “hen houses” linked to this recall and outbreak – or any other hen houses for that matter. We are being assured that if the “Egg Rule” (which was debated for decades) had been in place in May (when the outbreak began) and not July (when the outbreak was nearly over) this whole mess would not have occurred. Really? Here is a summary of the Rule:
• Buy chicks and young hens only from suppliers who monitor for Salmonella bacteria
• Establish rodent, pest control, and biosecurity measures to prevent spread of bacteria throughout the farm by people and equipment
• Conduct testing in the poultry house for Salmonella Enteritidis. If the tests find the bacterium, a representative sample of the eggs must be tested over an eight-week time period (four tests at two-week intervals); if any of the four egg tests is positive, the producer must further process the eggs to destroy the bacteria, or divert the eggs to a non-food use
• Clean and disinfect poultry houses that have tested positive for Salmonella Enteritidis
• Refrigerate eggs at 45 degrees F during storage and transportation no later than 36 hours after the eggs are laid (this requirement also applies to egg producers whose eggs receive a treatment, such as pasteurization).
• Environmental Testing for SE. There are specific requirements on when and how to test for SE and coordination with pullet testing.
• Egg Testing for SE. Whenever you have reason to know/suspect of presence of SE. Two week intervals in positive poultry houses.
It seems to me that the above are both common sense and minimum requirements for producing eggs – especially when you are producing them from millions of chickens for the consuming public.. Furthermore, how is the FDA going to inspect these plants when it does not now have the manpower to inspect the thousands of other food manufacturing plants it is supposed to inspect now?
Perhaps looking back across “the pond” might give us a way out of this scramble.Continue Reading We could learn something from Jolly Old England – About Salmonella
I did two of the cable channels before 7:00 AM this morning in between doing three radio shows:
