Health Update: Salmonella--A Sticky Situation
Megan Rooney
Issue date: 2/28/07 Section: Features
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First there was an E-coli breakout forcing several Taco Bell restaurants to close their doors temporarily. Then there was the national recall of E-coli contaminated spinach, killing four people and sickening nearly 200 last year. The newest food contamination scare came with the Feb. 15 link between salmonella and peanut butter surfacing.
Health officials say all jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter purchased since May 2006 should be discarded. More specifically, jars with a product code starting with the number 2111, should be disposed of immediately.
According to CBS News, salmonella sickens approximately 40,000 people in the United States each year, killing roughly 600. It is a bacterium that causes food-borne illness. Symptoms can include diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.
Federal Health officials said the salmonella outbreak has slowly grown to nearly 300cases in 39 states since August. New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri have reported the highest number of cases. About two cases have been reported each day. It is believed to be the first salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter in history. No one has died as a result.
Nobody really knows how salmonella got into peanut butter in the first place . A report from the Associated Press says, "Rodents and birds sometimes make their way into peanut storage bins at the Sylvester plant, but any salmonella would be killed during the peanut roasting process, when temperatures exceed the 165 degrees needed to destroy the bacteria." The only time where bacteria might get into the peanut butter would be during the short cool-down process, before it is sealed into jars.
Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition said, "There is a lot that happens after that heat step before it's put into jars. So, there's definitely an opportunity for contamination after the roasting." ConAgra, the company that produces the peanut butter, randomly tests about seventy jars a day at the plant and have not found any signs of salmonella.
A recent CBS news poll found "only 15 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the government's ability to protect from food-borne illness."
At Manhattan College, Sodexho, the campus dining service, serves hundreds of students daily. If they were to serve contaminated food, many students would be effected negatively. Necessary actions and precautions are being taken in outbreaks like this.
Dennis McCoskey, Manhattan's Operations Manager, explained that campus dining, in cases like salmonella, ensures student safety. "We have national alerts from our company that come out, like for the spinach and lettuce incidents. They give us lot numbers and we check out stock and if there's a problem we discard the items or send them back. Most of the time, we stop using the product all together." McCoskey said during the spinach scare, it was not served in the cafeterias for months afterward.
Health officials say all jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter purchased since May 2006 should be discarded. More specifically, jars with a product code starting with the number 2111, should be disposed of immediately.
According to CBS News, salmonella sickens approximately 40,000 people in the United States each year, killing roughly 600. It is a bacterium that causes food-borne illness. Symptoms can include diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.
Federal Health officials said the salmonella outbreak has slowly grown to nearly 300cases in 39 states since August. New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri have reported the highest number of cases. About two cases have been reported each day. It is believed to be the first salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter in history. No one has died as a result.
Nobody really knows how salmonella got into peanut butter in the first place . A report from the Associated Press says, "Rodents and birds sometimes make their way into peanut storage bins at the Sylvester plant, but any salmonella would be killed during the peanut roasting process, when temperatures exceed the 165 degrees needed to destroy the bacteria." The only time where bacteria might get into the peanut butter would be during the short cool-down process, before it is sealed into jars.
Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition said, "There is a lot that happens after that heat step before it's put into jars. So, there's definitely an opportunity for contamination after the roasting." ConAgra, the company that produces the peanut butter, randomly tests about seventy jars a day at the plant and have not found any signs of salmonella.
A recent CBS news poll found "only 15 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the government's ability to protect from food-borne illness."
At Manhattan College, Sodexho, the campus dining service, serves hundreds of students daily. If they were to serve contaminated food, many students would be effected negatively. Necessary actions and precautions are being taken in outbreaks like this.
Dennis McCoskey, Manhattan's Operations Manager, explained that campus dining, in cases like salmonella, ensures student safety. "We have national alerts from our company that come out, like for the spinach and lettuce incidents. They give us lot numbers and we check out stock and if there's a problem we discard the items or send them back. Most of the time, we stop using the product all together." McCoskey said during the spinach scare, it was not served in the cafeterias for months afterward.