Salmonella tied to Foster Farms chicken hospitalizes dozens, may be drug-resistant

[n2doc]

Source: NBC

Federal food safety workers who monitor dangerous bacteria have been recalled from furlough to track an outbreak of salmonella linked to Foster Farms chicken that has hospitalized a high proportion of victims, including some with hard-to-treat infections.

Nearly 300 people in 18 states have been sickened since about July by an outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg traced to raw chicken from three sites run by the private California poultry producer, said Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 42 percent of patients reporting complete information have been hospitalized, about double the proportion typically expected from a salmonella outbreak, Reynolds said. Of 183 complete cases, 76 patients have been hospitalized. Among those, many infections appear to be resistant to the most common antibiotics used to them, she added.

At least seven different strains of Salmonella Heidelberg have been tied to the outbreak, which led CDC officials on Tuesday to recall 30 staffers, including nine who work for the agency’s PulseNet team, which monitors the electronic fingerprint of dangerous foodborne bugs. They’d been on furlough because of a government shutdown stretching into its second week.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/salmonella-tied-foster-farms-chicken-hospitalizes-dozens-may-be-drug-6C11357570#

[Stargazer99]

1. this is one prime example why there should be government control

I remember when I was a kid in the 40's you almost never heard of food poisioning
now with this "free trade" and lack of control of corps we find our dogs/cat had animal feed (from China-thanks to corp America)
killed some of our best friends, numerous people hospitalized from bad food (how much food is now imported and who knows what
inspections or precautions had been taken, if any.
Our government inspectors have been culled down due to the powers that be
Disgusting

[YoungDemCA]

2. It's not like the FDA or CDC are essential government services

[kestrel91316]

4. USDA FSIS provides inspectors for US packing plants/slaughterhouses and they are still up and

"running", hthough the RWers in Congress and inside USDA gutted their ability to do their jobs years ago.

So no one could have forseen THIS.



And even USDA FSIS will go away if we go into default.

[KamaAina]

3. Oh goody. That is by far the leading brand of chicken out here.

Much like Perdue along the Eastern Seaboard.

[Auggie]

5. Big supplier in food service too

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Tyson and Sanderson Farms are the big ones down here

in the far south.
Winn Dixie used to carry pretty good meat, but they have changed, I think they got bought out.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. It can't be drug resistant.

Evolution isn't real.
We didn't want those food safety inspectors anyway, what do they know?

[Left Coast2020]

8. Well, corporations are people, my friends!

[Sunlei]

9. perhaps the answer is to raise the animals in cleaner conditions so they don't need AB to survive.

AB= antibiotics so the filth of factory farms doesn't rot the animals alive.

I don't think any processing can wash off every speck of salmonella, all it takes is one solution to be mixed wrong or water contaminated.

We need Gov.people who regulate the processing locations and check meats that come from these processing plants to not be furloughed.

We really should rework the animal husbandry beginning of the process of food animals. No need to raise animals in filthy conditions in the first place.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. It can come from perfectly organic free range stuff too.

Organic green onions killed like 130 people in Virginia a couple years back. It happens.

Inspections by a independent entity are the first, best safeguard against it.

[Sunlei]

11. yes but poultry are raised in the most filthy conditions and that adds to the contamination issue.

I'm beginning to agree with Paul McCartney, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls everyone would turn vegan"

[PSPS]

12. This is what happens when you have huge national food producers. 18 states? No local chickens?

But there's always a silver lining. The top 0.01% are just fine with the government shutdown because it means the cops are furloughed and they can tell their staff to "hurry up and ship all the bad stuff now while they're not looking!"

[blkmusclmachine]

13. .

.