228M eggs recalled following salmonella outbreak


By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 17, 11:55 pm ET
WASHINGTON – An Iowa egg producer is recalling 228 million eggs after being linked to an outbreak of salmonella poisoning.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said eggs from Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa, were linked to several illnesses in Colorado, California and Minnesota. The CDC said about 200 cases of the strain of salmonella linked to the eggs were reported weekly during June and July, four times the normal number of such occurrences.

State health officials say tainted eggs have sickened at least 266 Californians and seven in Minnesota.

The eggs were distributed around the country and packaged under the names Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma's, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemp.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating.

In a statement, company officials said the FDA is "on-site to review records and inspect our barns." The officials said they began the recall Aug. 13.

The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight hours to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems.

i saw this on aol welcome screen, gee i have not bought eggs or milk in like over 5 years, i dont eat a regular breakfast, lol, but i do at the lake when my daughter cooks it. and ofcourse i love stuffed eggs like at holiday meals,

i just dont have time, i eat a bannana for breakfast , but as u know i get up late, so i eat lunch shortly after the bannana, lol, i like eggs, i just dont have time to cook, and they would get old, but like i said my daughter usually cooks a full breakfast at the lake , i have never been a big breakfast person,

380 million eggs now in 17 states, so far La., Fla. and Ala. are in the clear.

Tyler where did the green eggs and ham go, that was sooo cute, i loved that book reading it to my kids.

SSC wrote:Tyler where did the green eggs and ham go, that was sooo cute, i loved that book reading it to my kids.

Thanks, but I deleted it, no one seemed to recognize it or appreciate the humor, no big deal. I struck out on that one. lol

Oh well....

Egg Recall Expands to More than Half-Billion Eggs

Published August 20, 2010

| Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com//politics/2010/08/20/egg-recall-expands-half-billion-eggs/


WASHINGTON -- More than a half-billion eggs have been recalled in the nationwide investigation of a salmonella outbreak that Friday expanded to include a second Iowa farm. The outbreak has already sickened more than 1,000 people and the toll of illnesses is expected to increase.

Iowa's Hillandale Farms said Friday it was recalling more than 170 million eggs after laboratory tests confirmed salmonella. The company did not say if its action was connected to the recall by Wright County Egg, another Iowa farm that recalled 380 million eggs earlier this week. The latest recall puts the total number of potentially tainted eggs at about 550 million.

FDA spokeswoman Pat El-Hinnawy said the two recalls are related. The strain of salmonella bacteria causing the poisoning is the same in both cases, salmonella enteritidis.

Federal officials say it's one of the largest egg recalls in recent history. Americans consume about 220 million eggs a day, based on industry estimates. Iowa is the leading egg producing state.

The eggs recalled Friday were distributed under the brand names Hillandale Farms, Sunny Farms, Sunny Meadow, Wholesome Farms and West Creek. The new recall applies to eggs sold between April and August.


Hillandale said the eggs were distributed to grocery distribution centers, retail groceries and food service companies which service or are located in fourteen states, including Arkansas, California, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Thoroughly cooking eggs can kill the bacteria. But health officials are recommending people throw away or return the recalled eggs.

A food safety expert at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., said the source of the outbreak could be rodents, shipments of contaminated hens, or tainted feed. Microbiology professor Patrick McDonough said he was not surprised to hear about two recalls involving different egg companies, because in other outbreaks there have also been multiple sources.

Both plants could have a rodent problem, or both plants could have gotten hens that were already infected, or feed that was contaminated.

"You need biosecurity of the hen house, you want a rodent control program and you want to have hens put into that environment that are salmonella free," McDonough said.

The salmonella bacteria is not passed from hen to hen, but usually from rodent droppings to chickens, he added. This strain of bacteria is found inside a chicken's ovaries, and gets inside an egg.

CDC officials said Thursday that the number of illnesses related to the outbreak is expected to grow. That's because illnesses occurring after mid-July may not be reported yet, said Dr. Christopher Braden, an epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control
.

Almost 2,000 illnesses from the strain of salmonella linked to both recalls were reported between May and July, almost 1,300 more than usual, Braden said. No deaths have been reported. The CDC is continuing to receive information from state health departments as people report their illnesses.

The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight hours to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems.

The form of salmonella tied to the outbreak can be passed from chickens that appear healthy. And it grows inside eggs, not just on the shell, Braden noted.

Eggs from Iowa farms could come to table near you

By DAVID MERCER, Associated Press Writer David Mercer, Associated Press Writer – Wed Aug 25, 5:54 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100825/ap_on_re_us/us_tainted_eggs
Millions of eggs from the Iowa farms at the heart of a massive salmonella recall are not destined for the garbage but for a table near you.

The recalled eggs that were already shipped to grocery stores and restaurants are being dumped by the truckload. But the eggs still being laid by potentially infected chickens will be pasteurized to kill any bacteria. Then they can be sold as liquid eggs or put in other products such as mayonnaise or ice cream.

It's a common if little-known practice in the food industry — salvaging and selling products that may have been tainted with disease.

After pasteurization, the bacteria "are all going to be dead, and if they're dead, they're not going to hurt anybody," said University of Illinois food science professor Bruce Chassy.

Officials from the two farms that have recalled more than a half-billion eggs said Wednesday there's no reason not to use the eggs while federal officials investigate the outbreak.

Wright Egg Farms and Hillandale Farms issued the recall after learning that salmonella may have sickened as many as 1,300 people.

Spokeswomen for the farms said their hens are still laying millions of eggs every day. Those eggs are being sent to facilities where their shells are broken and the contents pasteurized — a process that involves applying high heat without cooking the eggs.

Hillandale Farms spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said the operation has 2 million birds that lay an egg about every 26 hours.

"It's close to 2 million eggs a day," she said.

Chassy said there's no reason the eggs — even from infected hens — cannot be safely sold if they are pasteurized or cooked. Doing so raises the temperature of the eggs high enough to eliminate most if not all salmonella.

Both companies said they are waiting to hear from the Food and Drug Administration before deciding what, if anything, to do with their hens.

The FDA cannot order the farms to kill hens that may be infected with salmonella, but the farms could decide to do that on their own. Neither would discuss that possibility.

"There's no reason at this time," Wright County Egg spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said. "We're still in the middle of testing and investigation."

Said Hillandale's DeYoung: "We certainly intend to comply with whatever suggestions they make. And until such time that investigation is complete, it would be premature to speculate on what those steps might be."

She would not say whether the hens could wind up being used for meat — common practice for egg-laying hens once they pass about 18 months of age and become less productive.

A similar process has been used to salvage other raw products tainted with bacteria. Ground beef found to contain E. coli bacteria, for instance, is sometimes diverted for use in precooked products such as frozen meatballs, said Don Schaffner, a professor and microbiologist at Rutgers University.

Tainted meat could also wind up being used in canned soup, he said.

Because the farms involved in the recall have so many hens, Schaffner said, "it would be a catastrophic waste if these hens were not going to be used in some way in the food supply."

Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, agreed that it's fine for meat and eggs tainted with salmonella to be eaten once they are properly cooked.

But he does not think food producers like the farms involved in the egg recall should be able to decide for themselves whether to recall products or whether to kill their birds to stop further spread of salmonella.

The FDA "needs more authority," Gurian-Sherman said. "They need mandatory recall authority so a company can't fiddle while Rome is burning. They need more inspectors. They need to be able to make changes in production processes where consumer health is threatened."

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg this week called on Congress to adopt legislation stalled since last year that would allow the FDA to order recalls and give the agency more access to company records.