USDA won't close plants in salmonella outbreak

[cali]

Of the people infected, 42% have been hospitalized — an unusually high percentage, according to the CDC.

The Department of Agriculture will not close the California chicken-processing plants linked to a nationwide outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella, officials said.

"Foster Farms has submitted and implemented immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations," USDA spokesman Aaron Lavallee said Thursday evening.

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Foster Farms has not recalled chicken from the three implicated California plants, however grocery giant Kroger Co. has. The company has removed Foster Farms product from those plants, said spokesman Keith Dailey. In addition, Kroger has pulled the chicken from Food 4 Less stores on the West Coast and Smith's in southern Nevada and New Mexico, Dailey said.

Foster Farms is not obligated to recall chicken processed at the three plants because USDA investigators have not yet been able to tie the outbreak to specific products and lots.

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Thirteen percent of those sickened have salmonella septicemia, a serious, life-threatening, whole-body inflammation, Braden said. Normal for salmonella would be "just a few percent," he said.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/10/foster-farms-salmonella-outbreak-california/2956111/

For years, Foster Farms wanted consumers to know its poultry was farm fresh, all natural and, most important, safe to eat.

But the ongoing salmonella outbreak linked to three of its central California processing plants is threatening to tarnish the company's image and raising hard questions about gaps in the nation's food safety laws.

<snip>

Food safety advocates said that underscores a glaring weakness in the inspection system. They say virulent forms of antibiotic resistant salmonella should be handled like E. coli O157:H7, which triggers an automatic recall.

"Producers have been successful at deflecting blame back on to consumers for not cooking poultry properly. It's nonsensical," said Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who represented dozens of plaintiffs after an E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s.

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foster-farms-salmonella-20131011,0,280633.story

[B Calm]

1. Tens of thousands of USDA employees were laid off

because of the government shutdown.

http://kunc.org/post/government-shutdown-slows-usda