San Diego County published a new release at 4:37 this afternoon, and it closes the hole that has sat in the middle of this outbreak for six weeks. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration collected samples inside the Happy Hens hen houses in Ramona. Salmonella was found in two of the seven houses tested. Genetic testing linked the Salmonella from the farm to the strains from ill San Diegans. The California Department of Public Health gave those results to the owners of Happy Hens and recommended that the farm issue a voluntary egg recall. As of today, the farm has not issued one.

What the County said

FDA went out to the farm beginning on August 17. The County describes that visit as a routine inspection unrelated to the outbreak. Samples were collected from the floor and from the perch rails and nest boxes of the hen houses, where droppings accumulate, to check whether the flock was infected. Two of seven houses came back positive, and sequencing tied the farm isolates to the human cases. Test results on eggs distributed by the farm are still pending.

The outbreak now stands at 23 cases with seven hospitalizations, up from the 13 cases and four hospitalizations the County first reported on July 28 and the 21 cases it reported on August 17. For the first time the County has given the geography: La Mesa, Del Mar, Ramona, Jamul, and one case in Riverside County. The County also says its Department of Environmental Health and Quality has now reached out to all retail food facilities to make sure Happy Hens eggs associated with the outbreak are not used or distributed to the public until safe to do so.

One wrinkle for the record. On August 21 a California Department of Food and Agriculture spokesperson told the Union-Tribune that FDA inspected the farm after being notified of the outbreak. Today the County calls that visit routine and unrelated. Both statements are public, and the samples are the same samples either way.

What actually changed today

For six weeks the entire public defense of this farm rested on one sentence: no sample from our farm has ever tested positive. It was said on camera, said on the record to reporters, and repeated on social media. There is now a positive sample, and the genetics tie it to the people who were hospitalized.

I have argued for weeks that the epidemiology was already enough — patients linked to each other by whole genome sequencing, exposure histories pointing at one supplier, and traceback to one ranch is the standard proof package in a foodborne outbreak. A product-side match is confirmation, not a prerequisite. What it does is remove the last public argument for doing nothing.

Worth remembering who announced these results first. The farm did, on its own Instagram account, on August 31, before any agency said a word — nine days after circulating the claim that no sample from the farm had ever tested positive. Today is the first time a public health agency has confirmed the genetic link.

A recall was requested. The farm said no. There is a next step.

A voluntary recall is the first move, not the only one. Under the Food Safety Modernization Act, when FDA determines there is a reasonable probability that a food is adulterated and that eating it will cause serious adverse health consequences, the agency must first give the responsible party a chance to cease distribution and recall. If the company refuses, FDA may order it to stop distribution and notify everyone holding the product, hold an informal hearing, and issue a recall order. 21 U.S.C. § 350l. That statute exists precisely for the situation the County described this afternoon.

A laying operation of this size is federally regulated. 21 C.F.R. part 118 requires a written Salmonella Enteritidis prevention plan, environmental testing of each poultry house, and, when an environmental sample is positive, egg testing with diversion of the eggs to pasteurization until the testing clears. Whether that happened here is a question for the inspection record, which nobody outside the agencies has seen.

California ran this exact play nine months ago

In December, CDPH and CDFA investigated a Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak tied to eggs from Vega Farms in Dixon. They identified the supplier, inspected the operation, and collected egg and environmental samples. Multiple samples were positive, and whole genome sequencing matched at least one of them to the strain in the sick people. The firm recalled on December 5, and on December 12 CDPH issued its own consumer warning — brand name, handler code, Julian dates, sell-by dates, the kinds of stores that got the eggs, and a complaint hotline for anyone who still found them for sale. Sixty-three Californians sick, thirteen hospitalized.

That was a California-only outbreak, run by the same state department that made the recall request in Ramona this week. Same commodity, same pathogen, same category of evidence. Nine months later the state has the match and has asked, and there is still no recall and no consumer warning.

The federal side looks the same. CDC declared the Midwest Poultry Services shell egg outbreak over on September 3 with 134 people sick. FDA inspected and collected environmental samples; three matched the outbreak strain; the company recalled more than 1.5 million dozen eggs; the outbreak closed. A match produces a recall. That is the ordinary course, not an aggressive one.

What is still not public

There is no recall. There is no published list of the stores, farmers markets, and restaurants that received these eggs. This is a county and state investigation, so nobody should expect to find it on FDA’s multistate outbreak page — the agency holding the consumer-warning role here is CDPH, the same agency that recommended the recall, and it has published nothing of its own in this outbreak. A family in La Mesa or Del Mar with a carton of Happy Hens eggs in the refrigerator right now has nothing to check that carton against.

The County’s consumer advice is unchanged and worth following: cook eggs until both yolk and white are firm, throw out cracked or dirty eggs rather than washing them, wash hands and surfaces after handling raw eggs, and keep eggs at 45 degrees or below.

Our cases: amending Hight, and filing Dye and Terrell on Tuesday

We filed the first case in this outbreak for Whitney and Casey Hight in San Diego County Superior Court on August 18. On Tuesday we will file a First Amended Complaint adding what the County announced today — the two positive hen houses, the genetic match to the patient strain, the recall recommendation and the response to it — along with other facts developed since, including the farm’s own August statements about the investigation and its sales to the deli.

Two new complaints go on file the same day, both against Ramona Family Naturals, Inc. and Eben-Haezer’s Happy Hens, with Frederic L. Gordon as local counsel.

Julie Dye is a registered nurse with nineteen years of experience and the nurse educator of the emergency department at Sharp Grossmont Hospital. She ate the Market’s apple walnut chicken salad during the week of June 21. She was admitted with septic shock and acute kidney failure, spent seven days in the hospital, and was discharged on July 3, her fifty-first birthday. She had been diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer in May, and the bilateral mastectomy scheduled for July 2 had to be postponed.

Virginia Ann Terrell ate the Market’s egg salad and tuna salad and had bought Happy Hens eggs directly for years. She became ill on June 28 and went to the emergency department on July 1. Her husband Andrew brings a consortium claim, as does Julie Dye’s husband, Michael.

The claim against the Market is straightforward, and it is written into California law. Health and Safety Code section 114012 requires a food facility to substitute pasteurized eggs for raw shell eggs in foods that are not thoroughly cooked, and it names mayonnaise as the example. The only lawful way around it is a written variance from the local enforcement agency. The claim against the farm is that the eggs it shipped were contaminated with the organism that put these people in the hospital, which is now, by the County’s own account, a matter of genetic record.

If you got sick

Anyone with diarrhea, fever, or abdominal cramps after eating undercooked eggs should see a doctor and report it to the County Department of Environmental Health and Quality at (858) 505-6814 or through itsonline form. Ask for a stool culture. An isolate is what connects one person’s illness to everyone else’s.

Twenty-three people are sick. Seven went to the hospital. The strain has been found in the barns, and it matches. The eggs are still in commerce. A recall is a phone call.