21 People in 16 States Sick Due to Recalled Beef
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009Federal officials announced on December 30, 2009, that twenty-one people in sixteen states have been infected in recent days with a potentially lethal strain of E. coli bacteria, after consuming beef in restaurants supplied by the same Oklahoma meat company.
The outbreak prompted the company, National Steak and Poultry, to voluntarily recall 248,000 pounds of beef on December 24, 2009. The products, which range from steaks to sirloin tips, were packaged in October and shipped to restaurants, hotels and institutions throughout the United States, the company acknowledged.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has only a partial list of restaurants that received the potentially tainted beef, including two chains, Moe’s and Carino’s Italian Grill, primarily in the West and Midwest.
The recall is considered a “class 1″ or a “high health risk” by the USDA, which regulates the meat industry, because among the pathogens that can harm human health, E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most lethal. Even for those who survive, there can be long-term health effects.
Nine of the twenty-one sickened have been hospitalized, the USDA reported. The department has identified cases in six states: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington
The agency said the contamination appears to have begun with tainted beef used for chopped steak that was “co-mingled” with other products in the plant. Jerry Mande, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food safety, said the investigation is continuing. A telephone message left for the company was not returned.
The outbreak is considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency that tracks national illness outbreaks, to be relatively small. But it is significant because it is at least the fourth associated with mechanically tenderized beef since 2000.
