Developing a user-friendly risk assessment tool to assess the food safety risks of fresh produce production and landscape use
Center for Produce Safety is funding the development of a user-friendly risk assessment tool to assess the food safety risks of fresh produce production and landscape use.
Although researchers have conducted numerous studies about environmental and geographical influences on potential food safety outbreaks, much of that work is not easily accessible. To that end, Alda Pires, Ph.D., with the University of California, Davis, plans to tap much of that research to power a user-friendly online risk assessment tool for pathogenic E. coli.
Not only does Pires envision it providing customized results based on user-centered information, such as field locations, crops, and farming practices, but the tool will also offer possible mitigation measures. “The goal is for the end-user, the growers, to have something for their own fields or their ranch,” she said. “They want to know what their field risks are under certain conditions.”
Joining her as co-investigators in the CPS-funded project titled, “Developing a user-friendly risk assessment tool to assess the food safety risks of fresh produce production and landscape use,” are Beatriz Martinez-Lopez, Ph.D.; Gabriele Maier, Ph.D.; Erin DiCaprio, Ph.D., all with UC Davis.“This is a very ambitious project, but we expect a practical endpoint for decision-making,” Pires said.
According to the June 28, 2024 USDA Constituent Update, FSIS evaluated commercially available pathogen screening technologies and will adopt a new rapid screening test for adulterant Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). Specifically, FSIS will use the bioMérieux GENE-UP® Pathogenic E. coli (PEC) platform to screen enriched samples received on or after September 16, 2024, for adulterant STEC. This screening method adds efficiency by employing a novel molecular diagnostic target to rapidly identify samples containing STEC. FSIS expects that adoption of this new screening method will reduce the number of potential–and presumptive–positive STEC results that do not confirm positive with our current method. FSIS expects that industry will see reduced product holding times while waiting for laboratory results.
Food safety is set to gain national prominence with the release of “Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food.” The documentary from director Stephanie Soechtig was inspired by the book, Poisoned: The True Story of the Deadly E. Coli Outbreak That Changed the Way Americans Eat, by Jeff Benedict, which tells the story of the landmark 1993 Jack in the Box E. Coli outbreak.
The film premiered on June 9 at the Tribeca film festival and will launch on Netflix in Fall 2023. We spoke with Dr. Darin Detwiler, author, founder and CEO of Detwiler Consulting Group, and professor at Northeastern University, whose son Riley died as a result of the outbreak at just 16 months old, about his involvement in the documentary, who the film aims to reach, and changes that could be implemented to strengthen America’s food safety system.
How did the documentary come together and how did you get involved?
Sarah Sorcher, Marion Nestle, Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan, Julie Marler, Bill Marler, Darin Detwiler
Dr. Detwiler: The film makers bought the rights to the book Poisoned by Jeff Benedict, But where Benedict’s book really looks at 1993 and the immediate aftermath of the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli outbreak, the filmmakers also wanted to look at the 30 years since the outbreak. We connected because I had written Food Safety: Past, Present and Predictions, and in that book I talk about 1993 and the immediate aftermath, but I also talk about the Peanut Corporation of America, the romaine lettuce outbreak and other landmark cases over the past three decades. I was a good resource for them in terms of my experience in 1993 with the death of my son, who was one of those four who died as a result of the E. Coli outbreak, and also in terms of my work with USDA and the FDA and my role as an academic who speaks on food safety and food safety policy.
Who is the intended audience in terms of who the filmmakers were hoping to speak to and in terms of who you hope to reach?
Dr. Detwiler: I love the fact that there are different audiences for the documentary. This is an opportunity for food safety professionals to understand the legacy of the E. Coli outbreak and the why behind the protocols, procedures, and expectations in regulatory compliance.
But what excites me is that this documentary was made for the general public, and it can hit the hearts and the stomachs of everyone. Everyone eats, and for more than 50% of people, their first job is somehow connected to food. Could this help someone who is working on a food production line better understand the history behind food handling and food safety requirements?
At the premiere there were so many questions from the audience and people were saying, “I had no idea you could get it E. coli without even eating a contaminated product. I had no idea this is still an issue.” This documentary could impact the decision making of several different categories of stakeholders who all have a role to play in terms of the bigger picture of food safety.
It must be painful to keep revisiting and telling the story of your son’s death.
Dr. Detwiler and son Riley.
Dr. Detwiler: It’s a way from me to pay respect to my son, and this might sound Pollyannaish, but it also helps to memorialize his story and extend the legacy of his life to new audiences.
If my son was alive, he’d be older than I am now—I was 24 in 1993 and Riley would be 31 today. For 30 years I have been sharing his story, and it has served two purposes. One is to help improve food safety at the core level and two is to keep my promise to myself. Right after my son died, I spoke with President Bill Clinton on the phone, and I said, “I feel like I need to help and be a part of this.” My thinking was, whatever I can do in terms of science or technology or laws and policy, we’re going to make it such that families in the future will not be dealing with these problems, but clearly they still are.
There was also a sense of, while I’m faced with losing my son, I don’t want to be faced with this notion that my son lost his father. When I do this work, in my mind it’s like I’m still spending time with him. I’m still there for him. And I do this not only for myself and my son but also for other people who have been affected by foodborne illness. To say “the CDC estimates that 48 million Americans become sick every year, that some 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die every year,” that’s usually the most lip service anyone gives to the idea of foodborne illness. When I tell the story of my son’s illness and other family’s experiences, that puts a face and an emotion to those numbers. My goal is to not only impact those with the ability to change the industry, but also serve those 3,000 families every year—that’s 90,000 families since my son died—that live with that chair forever empty at their family table. I saw this documentary as being very important because the true burden of foodborne illness is represented, and representation is an important part of the healing and recovery from such an event.
I was surprised to learn that back in 1993 E. coli in beef wasn’t a significant concern on the federal level, but was more stringently regulated among a small number of states. Are there food safety risks today where you feel we’re lacking in oversight or regulation?
Dr. Detwiler: There were very few states that were reporting E. coli at that time, but within a year that had quadrupled. Today, we have Pulsenet and Foodnet, which are federal collections of data related to foodborne illness incidents, and we have much better—when you’re looking at multi-state outbreaks—data being collected.
One area that’s of interest is the FDA Food Code in that it is updated regularly, but there are some states that use very old versions of it. When I was doing my doctorate research just a few years ago in 2015-2016, there were some states that were using versions of the Food Code there were over 20 years old, and clearly the science has changed.
On the federal level, there are 15 different federal agencies that play a role in food safety as well as many different state agencies, but you don’t just have 50 states. Within those 50 states you have either the State Department of Agriculture or the State Department of Health overseeing food safety—each of which have two different missions and two different sources of funding. On top of that there are more than 3,000 different jurisdictions for food safety in the U.S. when you start looking at military bases, tribal reservations, universities and colleges, etc. In some places it’s regulated by the state and in others it’s by county or even by city. So there are a lot of moving pieces and a lot of different players, resulting in this patchwork of regulatory agency oversight.
Shortly after the 1993 outbreak, the USDA declared that E. coli was an illegal adulterant in meat, and today we rarely see cases of food safety failure related to E. coli and meat. However, there were no significant changes in FDA policy until FSMA was passed in 2010, and the rules didn’t start to be implemented until 2016.
Imagine if we had a single food safety agency. Imagine if there had been a single agency 30 years ago and if the change in policy hadn’t just impact food regulated by the USDA but instead impacted all foods.
Does this mean you support the potential move to create a single Human Foods program at the federal level?
Dr. Detwiler: I do support it and believe it would solve some of these gaps. When you look at other nations you don’t have the division among the states like we have here. Just the sheer number of agencies at the federal level, economically it doesn’t make sense. Look at what happened after 9/11. Suddenly you have the Department of Homeland Security that says we can cut through some of these problems by creating a federal agency that brings together all the different agencies involved in national security. Imagine if something like that was done in terms of food safety.
There are a lot of factors to consider, and this is a complicated issue. I don’t think this documentary will answer all the questions, but I hope that it will compel consumers to start asking these questions. That is where we can potentially see the greatest change and improvement in food safety.
You mentioned that in the documentary the film makers wanted to focus on the legacy of 1993, what in your words is the legacy of 1993?
Dr. Detwiler: In terms of the positive, it gained the media’s attention. We have a food safety culture and industry today that has radically grown when you look at magazines and websites and conferences and things like that. What I do find unfortunate is that it is focused on industry. Imagine if all the messaging about driver safety was kept within the automobile industry and not actually getting to drivers. This documentary fills a big gap by focusing on the consumer. We also have seen the positive impact of the USDA declaring E. Coli an illegal adulterant in meat.
Some of the things the documentary highlights, however, is the issue of antibiotic resistance and salmonella still being legal in poultry. When you look at some of the things that haven’t changed—for example, we see cattle feed lots that are next to where romaine lettuce is grown, the idea that Hepatitis A could be prevented in the food industry and in restaurants if employees simply got the vaccine to prevent it, and the lack of consequences for food safety failures—there are still areas that are lacking.
Most people don’t realize that with Jack in the Box back in 1993, there were no state or federal charges filed even though the CEO acknowledged—in front of news cameras—that they violated state law on the minimum cooking temperature, resulting in hundreds of illnesses and hospitalizations and the death of four people.
For families who’ve lost a child or their child has been left disabled, these cases have all been settled out of court and out of the public eye. This documentary bypasses all of that and puts this information in a very public package.
My food safety journey was nurtured at an early age by my parents. I grew up in a farming family in a country (Kenya) where small scale food producers are the backbone of the economy. We lived within an agricultural research institute where my father worked. This enabled me to develop a lived awareness of the myriad of challenges that producers face, including affordable ways to manage pests and other food safety hazards.
Along with food safety, my parents instilled in me fundamental concepts of different ways to combine and prepare foods for optimal nutritional benefit. My late father’s work as a farm manager exposed me to animal and plant health and management, while my mother’s expertise in home economics laid the foundation for what has become my career path.
In my everyday formal and informal interactions with people, I try to inspire a passion for the science of food with special attention to safety. I believe that the debates around sustainability, climate change and food security should more deliberately include food safety as a key element, rather than a tangential afterthought.
The Path to a Career in Food Safety
After high school, I came to the U.S. for higher education, starting out as a Zawadi Africa Education Fund undergraduate scholar in biochemistry. I wanted to go into public health. My initial goal was medical school. However, after several internships shadowing doctors and surgeons and caring for terminally ill cancer patients, I decided to pursue a different path in public health. I chose to work in the food industry for a year, during which I explored opportunities for graduate school. By combining my history in food production, training in biological sciences and desire to contribute meaningfully to human health, I eventually opted to undertake a master’s in food science, studying the antimicrobial properties of plant-based extracts against known foodborne pathogens.
After completing my master’s, I applied for and was awarded the prestigious Schlumberger Faculty for the Future Fellowship to pursue a doctorate in food science. In my dissertation, I built genome scale metabolic models to explore weaknesses in the Escherichia coli genome that could potentially be exploited by manipulating nutrient components in food matrices. I also evaluated the prevailing approaches to Extension food safety education in Minnesota, and underscored the value of collaboration between regulators, educators, and food producers to achieve ideal culturally relevant education and training. This turned out to be a long and challenging experience that taught me to be patient and resilient. I also learned to advocate for myself and other students.
Finding My Passion
Over time, I became more interested in the safety subfield. I discovered a passion for policy, which narrowed down my career interest to food safety regulations. Through mentorship and deliberate networking, I expanded my understanding of the history of food safety in the U.S., and the role that the Codex Alimentarius plays in the global food system. Some of the Books that shaped my understanding included Outbreak: Foodborne Illness and the Struggle for Food Safety by Lytton, Timothy D., and Food Systems Law by Marne Coit. I was also inspired by my Food Quality professor, whose industry experience brought to life many of the concepts we discussed in class.
After completing my dissertation, I was hired by the University of Minnesota Extension as a food safety specialist. In this capacity, I have two primary roles: research and outreach. My research focuses on the role of human behavior in foodborne illness, and hinges on the concept of food safety culture (the attitudes, beliefs and values about food safety practice). My interest in this specific area was inspired by two books—Food Safety = Behavior: 30 Proven Techniques to Enhance Employee Compliance and Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior Based Food Safety System—both written by former FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy & Response Frank Yiannas.
I continue to build on the lessons learned from my dissertation, working in collaboration with other scientists across the North Central Region. Specifically, I elevate the knowledge and experiences of local food producers and empower them to prioritize science-based solutions to challenges in formulation, processing, packaging, labeling and points of sale. My goal both through research and outreach is to enable small scale food producers to embody the critical role they play in local food systems, especially because consumers sometimes assume that local food means safe food.
It is not enough for food handlers to learn about food safety, and it is not practical to use scare tactics to get them to comply with regulatory requirements, because these are temporary solutions. Instead, I believe it is critical to alter behavior and the perception of food safety practice. This more readily happens when the handler takes ownership of food safety as part of their value system, rather than as a regulatory obligation.
Challenges Posed by the Growing Cottage Food Industry
The biggest challenge I face in my current role is the growing local food movement and cottage food industry. Today, there are almost 8,000 registered cottage food producers in Minnesota, all of whom can legally produce and sell non-potentially hazardous foods in their uninspected home kitchens. While the Minnesota Cottage Food Law only allows shelf-stable products, other states, such as Wyoming, have broader Food Freedom Laws that allow the sale of products including poultry. The undercurrent driving the local food movement is consumer demand for sustainable, locally sourced food, with a tangible connection to the producer. The chaos in the global food system during the pandemic also contributed to growth in local food supply. While all these changes are positive and contribute to food security and sovereignty, the question of safety still lingers.
Historically, work around the safety of food has focused on corporate manufacturing. Now the tide is slowly shifting towards local food systems, but more needs to be done to understand the food safety culture in this context. Concomitantly, we must develop training and education opportunities that account for the diversity of producers, including emerging (first generation) farmers, farmers practicing covered agriculture, immigrant farmers, and small and medium scale processors. For instance, cottage food producers in Minnesota maintain a list of allowed products, which has to this point been predominantly Eurocentric. However, as a sanctuary state, Minnesota is home to a very diverse population, with more than 150 languages spoken in the Twin Cities. As more immigrants learn about the cottage food industry, newer multi-cultural food items will be considered for inclusion on the list, which requires food safety analysis and shelf-life studies. These challenges present opportunities for collaborative problem solving through research that incorporates existing practical knowledge among key stakeholders.
Thoughts for Students Considering a Career in Food Safety
Food safety professionals choose this path because we deeply care about protecting the consumer. Episodes of foodborne illness are unnecessarily burdensome and quite often life threatening. Additionally, foodborne outbreaks erode consumer trust in the food industry and exert a heavy financial burden on the public health system. Many of the long-term impacts of foodborne illness are unknown to the general public but have devastating effects on patients and their families.
Choosing to be a food safety scientist means becoming an advocate, the voice of millions of people who expect—as they should—that every food item made available to them is inherently safe. It becomes your job to work in collaboration with regulatory authorities to keep unsafe food out of commerce. Sometimes you will be on the processing floor, actively training and managing the production team and ensuring everyone follows the food safety and defense plans. Other times, you will be in the C-Suite, bringing the voice of the food safety team to management to ensure that the company walks the talk when it comes to food safety. And every day, you will be the consumer that relies on the integrity of professionals such as yourself to protect you and your family from foodborne illness.
Chicken producers and processors must always pay close attention to listeria and E. coli. Their regulated to-market protocols incorporate intense testing and cleaning standards that help ensure the people who buy chicken sandwiches at fast casual restaurants, chicken fingers at sporting arenas and trays of fresh chicken legs at supermarkets don’t get sick.
The companies stay on top of listeria and E. coli because the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has considered them “adulterants,” or substances that should not be found in meat products, for decades. The federal agency banned listeria in 1987, and in 1994 listed E. coli as an adulterant in the wake of an E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants that sickened 700 people in four states, and led to 171 hospitalizations and four deaths.
All along, however, another prominent bacteria, Salmonella, remained unregulated, despite its proclivity for making people ill—more than a 1.3 million cases of salmonellosis appear in the U.S. every year, leading to about 26,500 hospitalizations and roughly 400 deaths. It is the No. 1 cause for foodborne illness in the U.S., and most cases stem from chicken products.
But earlier this year the USDA announced that it now plans to consider Salmonella an adulterant in some chicken products. The matter is out for public comment now; if the USDA doesn’t change its clear intention to regulate Salmonella, federal food inspectors soon will be testing for it in select chicken products.
The chicken industry opposes the measure. In a news release issued shortly after the FSIS’ August announcement, the National Chicken Council (NCC) pointed toward the 1957 Poultry Products Inspection Act, which did not include Salmonella as an adulterant, as a set of standards worth upholding today.
Well, a lot has changed in industrial agriculture during the past 65 years, and that includes a dramatic expansion of chicken farming and consumption across the country. In the 1950s, the average American ate about 16 pounds of chicken a year, compared to 56 pounds of beef and 50 pounds of pork. But by this year, Americans were eating close to 112 pounds of chicken a year, along with 56 pounds of beef and 50 pounds of pork. In terms of meat consumption, chicken now rules the roost. Regulating it might not have been necessary back when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. But today I believe it most definitely is.
As a professional in the food safety industry, I champion the FSIS’ decision. It’s about time the agency added Salmonella to its list of adulterants; the bacteria causes far too much illness and death in the U.S. every year. Many of those cases could have been prevented through regulatory oversight.
Addressing Poultry Industry Concerns
It is true, as opponents of the proposed regulation argue, that Salmonella doesn’t always emerge in the processing plant; humans can inadvertently introduce the bacteria in their own kitchens. Why, the industry asks, should it be penalized for conditions outside of its control? In addition, proper cooking methods will kill Salmonella. If people don’t follow cooking directions on the packages of chicken they buy, and get sick from Salmonella as a result, the chicken industry believes it should not be held accountable.
On the first issue, it is unlikely that cases revolving around individual consumers introducing Salmonella to their chicken products would ever lead to penalties. Federal regulators scrutinize public health data for clusters of outbreaks, which often point toward entire product lines being infected with bacteria; isolated one-off cases, many of which indeed could be the result of human error, do not concern them.
For the second point, yes, people should read labels and closely follow cooking directions. But in my opinion, that is irrelevant; dangerous levels of Salmonella simply should not dwell in foods, and it’s the job of regulators to make sure food is safe.
Toy manufacturers, for example, must eliminate choking hazards from products designed for kids under 3 years, thanks to federal regulations. It shouldn’t be up to parents to constantly monitor their toddlers while they play with toys, to ensure they don’t gag on something potentially dangerous found on the stuffed giraffe.
Should the rule become policy, the FSIS will focus on just one category: stuffed, breaded and raw chicken products. These products, including dishes like chicken Kiev and chicken cordon bleu, often are heat-treated to set the batter or breading, but are not fully cooked. They have been associated with 14 outbreaks and about 200 illnesses since 1998.
This represents a solid start. Next, I’d like to see the FSIS pursue regulating Salmonella in other chicken products. Even if the agency doesn’t, however, many processors will have to implement new practices and testing procedures for all of their products anyway, as in many cases it won’t make sense to just incorporate new protocols within a few discrete product lines. Among other things, I would anticipate boosted commitments among producers and processors to cleaning and sanitation processes, environmental monitoring (probably the most important pursuit) and overall facility food safety measures.
Will this action by the FSIS completely eliminate Salmonella from the targeted products? Absolutely not. The rule sets a maximum threshold for Salmonella in the food the agency tests; in many cases, chicken products that contain negligible amounts of the bacteria will still make it to market. It’s just products containing dangerous amounts of Salmonella that will be subject to penalties.
Food safety serves as one of the foundations of a healthy society. It also reinforces and bolsters public trust in the products consumers buy, which nurtures and strengthens the entire food industry. With this proposed Salmonella rule by the USDA, the U.S. takes another important step toward ensuring the health of its citizens, and further enhancing consumer trust in the chicken products they buy.
This month, the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration’s (IFSAC) released it newest annual report , “Foodborne illness source attribution estimates for 2020 for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, and Listeria monocytogenes using multi-year outbreak surveillance data, United States.” IFSAC is a collaboration between the CDC, FDA and USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
The report was developed to help shape the priorities of the FDA, inform the creation of targeted interventions to reduce foodborne illnesses caused by these pathogens, inform stakeholders and improve regulatory agency’s to assess whether prevention measures are working.
The report identified 3,749 outbreaks that occurred from 1998 through 2020 and were confirmed or suspected to be caused by Salmonella, E. coli O157, or Listeria, including 192 outbreaks that were confirmed or suspected to be caused by multiple pathogens or serotypes.
The IFSAC excluded 96 of these outbreaks according to its pathogen-exclusion criteria, leaving 3,653 outbreaks. The agency further excluded 1,524 outbreaks without a confirmed or suspected implicated food, 836 outbreaks for which the food vehicle could not be assigned to one of the 17 food categories, and six that occurred in a U.S. territory.
The resulting dataset for the report included 1,287 outbreaks in which the confirmed or suspected implicated food or foods could be assigned to a single food category. These included 960 caused or suspected to be caused by Salmonella, 272 by E. coli O157 and 55 by Listeria. Outbreaks from 2016 through 2020 provide 71% of model-estimated illnesses used to calculate attribution for Salmonella, 67% for E. coli O157 and 62% for Listeria.
Salmonella illnesses came from a wide variety of foods, with more than 75% of illnesses attributed to seven food categories: Chicken, Fruits, Pork, Seeded Vegetables (such as tomatoes), Other Produce (such as fungi, herbs, nuts, and root vegetables), Beef and Turkey.
More than 80% of E. coli O157 illnesses were linked to Vegetable Row Crops (such as leafy greens) and Beef.
More than 75% of Listeria monocytogenes illnesses were linked to Dairy products, Fruits and Vegetable Row Crops, though the IFSAC noted that “the rarity of Listeria monocytogenes outbreaks makes these estimates less reliable than those for other pathogens.”
Attribution estimates for Campylobacter outbreaks were not included in this year’s report, though they have been included in the past. IFSAC said that this was “due to continued concerns about the limitations of using outbreak data to attribute Campylobacter illnesses to sources … these concerns are largely due to the outsized influence of outbreaks in certain foods that pose a high individual risk for Campylobacter infection but do not represent the risk to the general population.” For example, 91% of reported Campylobacter outbreaks related to dairy products were associated with unpasteurized milk, while 57% majority of chicken-related outbreaks were due to chicken liver products, which are not widely consumed.
In light of the recent E. coli outbreak that has been linked to romaine lettuce, the FDA announced that it will begin targeted sampling of leafy greens grown on farms and ranches during the fall 2022 harvest season in the Salinas Valley region of California. In addition, the agency is releasing results from a 2021 sampling assignment and providing an update on other work happening under the Leafy Greens STEC Action Plan (LGAP).
The LGAP sampling efforts seek to detect and prevent contaminated product from reaching consumers and help leafy greens growers and processors identify practices or conditions that may present microbial risks so they can strengthen the microbiological safety of their operations.
During the fall 2022 harvest season the FDA plans to collect about 240 lettuce samples at farms/ranches in the Salinas Valley that were identified by traceback investigations in recent years as being potentially associated with a foodborne illness outbreak in which lettuce or leafy greens were the likely or suspect food vehicle.
The FDA notes that it also may collect environmental samples such as water, soil and scat, as appropriate, based on observations made at the time of sampling and a farm/ranch’s past inspection history. All samples will be tested for Salmonella spp. and E. coli O157:H7. The sampling will begin in mid-September 2022 and run through October 2022.
In 2021, the FDA conducted a leafy greens sampling assignment and has released a summary report of the results. As part of this assignment, the agency collected lettuce from commercial coolers in the Salinas Valley growing area and tested samples for E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella spp. between May and November 2021. The agency detected Salmonella enterica in one green leaf sample and STEC in two other samples. The potentially contaminated products were destroyed and follow-up inspections were conducted.
As a result of continued outbreaks and ongoing concerns about leafy green contamination, multi-disciplinary food safety experts from across the FDA also will be visiting with leafy greens producers in California over the next two months to learn more about leafy greens operations. The FDA shared that recent outbreaks have raised concerns about the sanitary design of harvest equipment and how field production and processing practices may be contributing to contamination events, which spurred the creation of this working group.
A multi-state outbreak of E. coli led Wendy’s to take the precautionary measure of removing romaine lettuce being used in sandwiches from restaurants in the region of the outbreak.
The CDC reports that as of August 18, 2022, a total of 37 people infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 have been reported from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The illnesses started on dates ranging from July 26, 2022, to August 8, 2022.
A specific food has not yet been confirmed as the source of this outbreak, but among 26 people who have been interviewed, 22 (86%) reported eating sandwiches with romaine lettuce at Wendy’s restaurants in Michigan, Ohio or Pennsylvania in the week before their illness started. Based on this information, Wendy’s removed the romaine lettuce being used in sandwiches from restaurants in those regions.
A spokesperson for Wendy’s released the following statement: “We are fully cooperating with public health authorities on their ongoing investigation of the regional E. coli outbreak reported in certain midwestern states. While the CDC has not yet confirmed a specific food as the source of that outbreak, we have taken the precaution of discarding and replacing the sandwich lettuce at some restaurants in that region. The lettuce that we use in our salads is different, and is not affected by this action. As a company, we are committed to upholding our high standards of food safety and quality.”
The CDC emphasized that it is not advising that people avoid eating at Wendy’s restaurants or that people stop eating romaine lettuce.
The CDC, public health and regulatory officials in several states, the FDA and the USDA-FSIS are collecting and analyzing data at the ingredient level to identify the food source of the outbreak, confirm whether romaine lettuce is the source and determine if there are any other possible foods that could be the source of the outbreak.
USDA’s FSIS has issued a public health alert regarding ground beef products that may be adulterated with E. coli O26. Since the products were produced on December 16 and 17, 2021, the products are no longer available for purchase—and thus the agency is not requesting a recall. However, since people frequently freeze ground beef, FSIS is concerned that these products could still in consumers’ freezers. The agency is urging consumers to check their ground beef products and not consumer the products listed in the public health alert.
The products were distributed to warehouses in Oregon and Washington and sold at retail locations, including Kroger. FSIS has provided images of the labels of the affected products.
The issue was uncovered after a consumer submitted one of the affected ground beef products to a third-party laboratory for microbiological analysis. Results confirmed the sample was positive for E. coli O26.
New Jersey-based Lakeside Refrigerated Services is recalling about 120,872 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O103. The issue was uncovered during routine FSIS testing of imported products.
The recall affects ground beef products that were produced between February 1, 2022 and April 8, 2022, and have the establishment number EST. 46841” inside the USDA mark of inspection (FSIS has provided a full list of products and product codes as well as product labels). The products were distributed to retail locations nationwide.
Thus far there are no confirmed reports of illness or adverse reactions related to products affected by this recall. “Many clinical laboratories do not test for non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) such as O103 because it is harder to identify than STEC O157:H7. People can become ill from STECs 2–8 days (average of 3–4 days) after consuming the organism,” FSIS stated in an announcement. The agency has advised that consumers throw out or return the recalled products to the place of purchase.
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Individuals may opt-out of 3rd Party Cookies used on IPC websites by adjusting your cookie preferences through this Cookie Preferences tool, or by setting web browser settings to refuse cookies and similar tracking mechanisms. Please note that web browsers operate using different identifiers. As such, you must adjust your settings in each web browser and for each computer or device on which you would like to opt-out on. Further, if you simply delete your cookies, you will need to remove cookies from your device after every visit to the websites. You may download a browser plugin that will help you maintain your opt-out choices by visiting www.aboutads.info/pmc. You may block cookies entirely by disabling cookie use in your browser or by setting your browser to ask for your permission before setting a cookie. Blocking cookies entirely may cause some websites to work incorrectly or less effectively.
The use of online tracking mechanisms by third parties is subject to those third parties’ own privacy policies, and not this Policy. If you prefer to prevent third parties from setting and accessing cookies on your computer, you may set your browser to block all cookies. Additionally, you may remove yourself from the targeted advertising of companies within the Network Advertising Initiative by opting out here, or of companies participating in the Digital Advertising Alliance program by opting out here.
