California stores have begun recalling Cargill turkey in response to a salmonella outbreak that has killed 1 and sickened dozens across the nation. The turkey has been sold under the brand names Kroger, Honeysuckle White and Riverside, according to the state Department of Public Health spokesman Mike Sicilia..

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Cargill said the ground turkey was produced at the company’s Springdale, Ark., facility between Feb. 20 and Aug. 2. Production at the plant has been suspended.

“Given our concern for what has happened, and our desire to do what is right for our consumers and customers, we are voluntarily removing our ground turkey products from the marketplace,” Steve Willardsen, president of Cargill’s turkey processing business, said in a statement.

He said Wednesday that production of ground turkey will not start up again at the plant “until the source can be pinpointed and actions to address it are taken.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said an investigation “determined that there is a link between the Cargill ground turkey products and the illness outbreak.” The recalled products have the number P-963 inside the USDA inspection mark.

“This is, if not the largest, one of the largest class-one food recalls to happen in U.S. history,” said William D. Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in food safety litigation. A class-one recall involves a health hazard that has a reasonable probability of causing health problems or death.

Over the last six months, local and state health department authorities in 26 states have reported dozens of cases of people falling ill after eating ground turkey. Salmonella Heidelberg is resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics and is often difficult to treat.

On Tuesday, California health officials confirmed that one person in Sacramento County died, apparently in connection with eating contaminated meat. County health officials declined to provide any details about the victim or the circumstances.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported that 22 people nationwide had been hospitalized, with victims ranging in age from younger than 1 to 88.

Salmonella can cause fever, diarrhea and abdominal pain. It can be fatal to young children, older people and those with compromised immune systems.

Cargill Value Added Meats Retail, a unit of Wichita, Kan.-based Cargill Meat Solutions, posted a brief statement on the company website, including an Internet link to a list of recalled products at http://www.cargill.com/turkey-recall/.

Cargill said it launched the recall as a result of an internal investigation and ongoing inquiries by the CDC and the USDA into multiple illnesses from Salmonella Heidelberg.

Cargill owns four turkey-processing facilities in the U.S., and no products from the other three are involved in the recall, the company said.

Investigators found the drug-resistant salmonella virus Heidelberg in 4 samples of turkey during a routine check of retail stores in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has decided to not yet release the stores in which the tainted meat was found, and no recall has been issued.

ABC News reports:

The reason for the lack of a recall is that the strain is not technically considered an “adulterant” — in other words, screeners finding it on meat in a grocery store is not enough to trigger a recall.

The CDC has found specific brands of turkey at stores with this strain of salmonella. And hospitals and doctors have found 77 people sickened by the same strain. But investigators have been unable to directly link an ill person to the brand of turkey that made them sick.

When asked why the USDA has not yet released the name of any establishments, Neil Gaffney, press officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said, “Despite an extensive investigation by FSIS and CDC, there is very little epidemiological information available at this time that directly links these illnesses to any specific product or establishment. Without this direct link and without specific enough data, it would not be appropriate to issue a recall notice.

“FSIS is committed to continuing this investigation in order to obtain the additional information necessary to find the source of this outbreak, and take appropriate action to protect public health,” Gaffney said.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the USDA in May to declare this strain of salmonella an adulterant.

The outbreak began in March 2011 when the CDC and the FSIS received reports of a number of cases of an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella that is often difficult to treat. To date Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, California and Pennsylvania have been most affected by the outbreak. Twenty-two people have been hospitalized.

Public health investigators are currently using DNA “fingerprints” of this bacteria in order to identify cases of illness. Though a public health warning concerning the outbreak was issued on July 29 by the FSIS, and the CDC has matched this particular strain of bacteria to four contaminated ground turkey products, there is reportedly not enough information to issue an official recall at this time.

Salmonella poisoning usually results in diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps during the 12 to 72 hours after a contaminated item is consumed, and symptoms will last for four to seven days, according to the CDC. Most people recover without treatment, but in some — especially those with weakened immune systems such as the elderly, small children and people with HIV/AIDS — severe illness and even death can result.

Because the salmonella Heidelberg strain is antibiotic-resistant, those infected are more likely to require hospitalization, the CDC reports.

Nestlé Purina is in the process of recalling bags of cat food that may be contaminated with salmonella. The recall affects 3.5- and 7-pound bags of Purina One Vibrant Maturity 7+ Dry Cat Food that were made in single production run in late 2010.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The recall is for bags with a “Best by” date of May 2012:

• 3.5-pound bags, with production codes of 03341084 and 03351084 and UPC codes of 17800 01885.
• 7-pound bags with production codes of 03341084 and 03351084 and UPC codes of 17800 01887

The “Best by” date and production code are at the back or bottom of the bag.

Nestlé Purina PetCare Company spokesman Keith Schopp said today that the product involved in the recall was made over the course of two days at the company’s manufacturing facility in Davenport,Iowa, one of 20 such facilities around the country. He was not able to say how much was made over the course of those two days and said the company did not know what caused the contamination.

According to Schopp, the company was advised of the contamination by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

No other Purina products for either cats or dogs are affected by the recall, the company said. Schopp said that the product involved in the recall is created to meet nutritional needs of “senior” cats — or cats over 7 years old.

When asked if the company had heard anything from people whose pets were harmed by eating contaminated food, he said that he would have to ask the company’s consumer affairs department.

The St. Louis-based company said anyone who purchased the recalled products should stop using it and throw it away. It also warns against any humans handling the cat food. The company said consumers could obtain a refund by calling the company at 1-800-982-6559 or by going to its website.

The recalled pet food was distributed to retail customers inCalifornia, Iowa, Illinois,Indiana,Kentucky,Michigan,Minnesota,Missouri,North Dakota,Nebraska,Ohio andWisconsin — but the food could have been taken to other states, the company said.

According to the Department of Public Health, 17 people in Illinois have become ill due to a salmonella outbreak that has been linked to papayas grown in Mexico. Of the 17 who were sick, 8 have been hospitalized. Overall, salmonella outbreaks have infected 97 people across 23 states between Jan. 1 and July 18.

Daily Herald reports:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising consumers not to eat papayas from Agromod Produce Inc., which is voluntarily recalling the product after tests found the outbreak strain in two samples.

Anyone with fresh papayas is urged to check the fruit’s stickers for the Agromod brand, and either return the product or throw it away, according to the FDA.

Salmonella can have serious health risks for the elderly, infants and those with impaired immune systems, according to the Department of Public Health.

Symptoms usually appear six to 72 hours after ingesting the bacteria, and include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

The FDA is urging anyone that has any of these symptoms and has eaten papayas to seek medical help.

A week after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned of a possible link between salmonella and sprouts from Evergreen Produce of Moyie Springs,  the company is now issuing a recall of its alfalfa and spicy sprouts. Evergreen initially refused a recall, but the company stated Friday that it is responding to agency pressure.

At least 21 cases of salmonella have been reported in Idaho, Montana, Washington, North Dakota and New Jersey. Salmonella is an organism that can lead to serious and sometimes fatal health consequences in people with weakened immune systems. Yet another reminder to maintain a proper immune system in order to fight off potentially harmful health conditions.

First they were riding on bedbugs. Now, drug-resistant superbugs are showing up in supermarket meat. Raw beef, chicken and turkey from Detroit grocery stores contained methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a sinister strain of bacteria that doesn’t respond to typical antibiotics, researchers reported Wednesday.

It may sound scary, but it’s no reason to go vegetarian, experts say.

“We’ve known for a long time that raw meat and poultry purchased in supermarkets can be contaminated with bugs that can make us sick, like salmonella and E. coli. As long as we clean our hands and our utensils and we cook the food, we kill the bacteria,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “Even though this is a new bug, that shouldn’t change anything. It should just reinforce all those messages.”

The study, reported online Wednesday in Emerging Infectious Diseases — the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s journal, is not the first to find MRSA in meat. But very few have ever come out of the United States, so it’s making headlines nationwide.

“Previous studies have shown MRSA in pork and beef, but we found MRSA poultry in our study,” said report author Dr. Yifan Zhang, assistant professor in the department of nutrition and food science at Wayne State University in Detroit, who said she was surprised at the stir her study created.

“The most important thing in this study is, we don’t want to scare people,” Zhang said. “Overall, the U.S. food supply is safe.”

Unlike other food borne bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus thrives in gashes rather than guts. It lives on your skin instead of in your intestines. So handing the meat is riskier than eating it, Zhang said.

“Wash your hands before and after handling meat, and if you have cuts on your hands, wear gloves,” she said, adding that normal soap and cleaning products are sufficient to kill the germ.

MRSA infection rates — in hospitals and the community at large — have declined in the past decade, according to CDC statistics. Nevertheless, the study raises important questions about where the meaty MRSA is coming from — the animals or the humans who handle their meat.

“It’s possible that MRSA could be getting into the animals themselves,” said Schaffner. “The authors say that’s another reason we should be careful to not misuse antibiotics in animals. But an animal goes though an awful lot of processing before it lands on the supermarket shelves. The bugs could have been picked up during the processing phase.”

Most healthy people are not at risk for a Staphylococcus aureus infection. In fact, one in three people carries the bacteria on their skin or in their nose and never knows it. But the finding of MRSA in grocery meat should serve as a reminder to keep clean and cook well, Schaffner said.

“We should always remember: The food in our supermarket is not sterile. We live in a germy world and we have to respect that.”