Romaine lettuce is unsafe to eat in any form, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in a food safety alert in response to a new outbreak of illnesses caused by a particularly dangerous type of E. coli bacteria.
CDC told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, no matter where or when the lettuce was grown. It doesn’t matter if it is chopped, whole head or part of a mix.
The unusually broad warning, issued just two days before Americans sit down for their Thanksgiving dinners, reflects the uncertainties about the origin and extent of the bacterial contamination. The CDC is not claiming that all romaine contains the dangerous bacteria — something the millions of people who have eaten the popular lettuce recently should bear in mind — but investigators don’t know precisely where, when or how the contamination happened.
Thus all romaine is suspect.
The CDC reported that 32 people in 11 states have become sick from eating contaminated romaine. Of those, 13 have been hospitalized, with one patient suffering from a form of kidney failure. The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported that 18 people have been infected with the same strain of E. coli. in Ontario and Quebec.
No deaths have been reported.
“Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick,” the CDC said in the Food Safety Alert issued shortly before 3 p.m.
“This advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad,” the CDC said. “If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or whether a salad mix contains romaine, do not eat it and throw it away.”
The agency also advised consumers to wash and sanitize drawers and shelves where the lettuce was stored. People usually become sick within three or four days of consuming lettuce contaminated with the E. coli, according to the CDC.
Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said the looming Thanksgiving holiday weighed on the minds of federal officials as they prepared the food alert.
“I think we felt increased pressure to try to communicate earlier and more substantively with the public given that we know people are going to sit down for holiday meals,” Gottlieb said.
But he acknowledged that it is “frustrating and unfortunate” that the alert has to be so broad, covering all romaine lettuce. The federal agencies and the industry are trying to improve traceback techniques to narrow down the sources of outbreaks, he said. “We need to be able to get consumers more precise information about what they shouldn’t be eating, rather than these more general alerts.”
California has the highest number of reported illnesses, with 10, followed by Michigan with seven, New Jersey with three, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York with two each, and the remainder in Connecticut, Maryland, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement saying it is making a special effort to test romaine for contamination across the country.
“The quick and aggressive steps we’re taking today are aimed at making sure we get ahead of this emerging outbreak, to reduce risk to consumers, and to help people protect themselves and their families from this foodborne illness outbreak. This is especially important ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, when people will be sitting down for family meals,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
Five people died in the most recent major outbreak from contaminated romaine, which lasted from March to June of this year and led to 210 cases in 36 states. That outbreak was traced to the Yuma, Ariz. growing region, but investigators never conclusively determined the precise source. Gottlieb said the leading suspect is contaminated canal water used by multiple farms.
The latest outbreak does not appear to be connected to the Yuma outbreak. Rather, this outbreak involves a strain of E. coli that has the same genetic fingerprint as the one that caused illnesses late last year in both the United States and Canada. Canada linked its cases to romaine lettuce specifically, although the U.S. investigators said only that origin was in leafy greens. Once again, the precise origin was never determined. That outbreak was declared over in January.
- By Joel Achenbach and Lena H. Sun
Read entire Washington Post Article
No comments :
Post a Comment