Salmonella Recalls Continue to Grow
March 11, 2010
Fox News
By Luke Funk
The number of products being recalled because of Salmonella fears continues to grow. More than 100 products have been recalled so far.
The Food and Drug Administration announced more than a half-dozen recalls just on Wednesday and admits that the recall could continue to grow over the next several weeks.
A so-called “flavor enhancer” supplied by Las Vegas company Basic Food Flavors that is used in thousands of products is being blamed. Tests show it may be contaminated with salmonella.
The product in question is hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP). The additive is mixed into foods to give them a meaty flavor. The food industry uses it in soups, cheese, sauces, hot dogs, frozen dinners, snack foods, dips and dressings. The FDA says that the company continued to manufacture and ship HVP even after its own testing found Salmonella in the product.
Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems, according to the government.
Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses.
Some of the recalled food products include some Herrs potato chips, Pringles potato chips, and Quaker snack mix.
In February, a customer of Basic Food Flavors alerted the FDA that it had detected Salmonella in the company’s HVP product.
That led to an FDA inspection at Basic Food Flavors that began on Feb. 12. That inspection led to the FDA’s positive findings of Salmonella in the manufacturing facility.
FDA inspectors also found problems in the company’s manufacturing processes, including a lack of microbial- contamination control. There were also problems with the cleaning and sanitizing procedures of equipment and work areas where food meant for human consumption was processed, as well as plumbing and drainage issues.
The FDA says the chances of a consumer getting sick are small because the foods are generally cooked before they are packaged. To date, there have been no reports of illnesses.
Click here for the full report
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 3-10-10
Today, Kevin explains why the government is suppressing the free flow of information and why the medical community wants you to be deficient in vitamin D.
At Least 3 of 4 Americans Don’t Get Enough Vitamin D
1 in 6 Americans Infected with Herpes
FDA Approves Drug Banned In 160 Countries
Chemical Substances Found in All Commercial Meat
The Government Regulation of Supplements
Vitamin D Essential For Activating Immune System
Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Drug Makers Can Be Sued
Most Drug Studies Don’t Help Docs Pick Best Treatment
Tainted Ingredient Sold After Salmonella Found
Bone Strengthening Drug Linked to Fractures
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click below to hear The Kevin Trudeau Show RIGHT NOW!!!
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 3-3-10
Today, Kevin explains how Congressmen are able to exempt themselves from the laws they pass and why America & Russia have spent so much time in Afghanistan. Plus, find out how food companies can get away with working with the drug companies to hurt your health and what needs to happen to eliminate virtual every disease and illness.
Charlie Rangel Steps Down
Anti-Depressant Scam
How to Create a Perpetual Moneymaking Machine
Also, as a special treat, the tables are turned and Kevin gets hit with the tough questions by Corrine Furnari of Take Charge of Your Health. You won’t want to miss this interview!
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click below to hear The Kevin Trudeau Show RIGHT NOW!!!
Scientists Warn of Fraud of Stem Cell ‘Banks’
Febraury 22, 2010
BreitBart
Clinics that offer to “bank” stem cells from the umbilical cords of newborns for use later in life when illness strikes are fraudsters, a top US scientist said.
Clinics in many countries allow parents to deposit stem cells from their neonate’s umbilical cord with a view to using the cells to cure major illnesses that could occur later in life.
In Thailand, for example, parents pay in the region of 3,600 dollars to make a deposit in a stem cell bank, thinking they are taking out a sort of health insurance for their child.
But Irving Weissman, director of the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University in California, said the well-meaning parents were being fleeced by the stem cell bankers.
“Umbilical cords contain blood-forming stem cells at a level that would maintain the blood-forming capacity of a very young child,” Weissman told reporters at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
“They could also have derived mesenchymal cells — fiberglass-like cells that have a very limited capacity to make scar, bone, fat — but they don’t make brain, they don’t make blood, they don’t make heart, they don’t make skeletal muscle, despite what various people claim,” he said.
Weissman said these “unproven stem cell therapeutic clinicians” tend to set up shop in countries with poor medical regulations, but AFP found websites for umbilical cord stem cell banks in European Union member states and in the United States.
“They do the therapies, then they let the patients go on their own, short of maybe 50-150,000 dollars for a therapy that has no chance — taken away from a family that needs them when they have an incurable disease,” Weissman said.
“It is wrong.”
The International Stem Cell Society is due to issue a report in April about unproven stem cell therapies such as banking a baby’s umbilical cord blood for future use.
Click here for the full report
WHO Advising Swine Flu Vaccine to be Combined With Regular Flu Vaccine
February 22, 2010
Associated Press
The World Health Organization is recommending that swine flu be added to the regular flu vaccine next season.
WHO said in a statement Thursday that it held a meeting this week to decide which flu strains should be recommended to drug makers for their vaccines during the northern hemisphere’s next flu season, which begins in the fall.
Flu vaccines have three virus strains — which experts decide on after estimating which strains made the most people sick last season.
Last year, the swine flu pandemic virus, or H1N1, emerged too late to be added to the regular flu vaccine and a new vaccine was needed.
Click here for the full report
Top Lobbyist for Pharmaceutical Industry Resigns
February 12th, 2010
Reuters
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) President and CEO Billy Tauzin said late Thursday he was resigning effective June 30 after five years as head of one of the most powerful lobby groups in Washington.
The group, which represents Pfizer, Merck and other top drugmakers, has been one of the biggest backers of Democrats’ legislation to expand access to health insurance, among other reforms.
“The bottom line is: this is not good for the (healthcare) bill,” said lobbying expert James Thurber, head of the Center for Congressional and Presidential studies at American University. “PhRMA played a key role and without Billy Tauzin, who is trusted by both parties, there … it doesn’t help the cause for getting the reform through.”
PhRMA pledged to pay $80 billion over 10 years in price cuts and other concessions as part of a deal with the Obama administration and top Senate Democrats last June. The cost was seen as a small price for the $315 billion drug industry to pay in exchange for potentially 30 million more insured customers.
In a statement, Tauzin said he had committed to serve PhRMA for more than five years and would meet his obligation this June.
Still, his departure adds uncertainty to the future of Democratic legislation currently stalled in Congress and PhRMA’s deal. Despite the industry’s backing, Democrats are struggling to find a path forward to pass a final measure after losing their supermajority in the Senate last month.
‘STRATEGIC BLUNDER’
Tauzin, who served 26 years in the U.S. House of Representatives first as a Democrat before switching to the Republican party, was the major force behind PhRMA’s deal. His group reported spending $26,150,520 in 2009 for lobbying, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
“His members think he gave away the farm for nothing. So he was really tossed because of a falling out with the board over miscalculating how to negotiate,” a source familiar with the situation said.
Another industry source, however, said Tauzin’s move was not linked to reform but rather a personality clash between the former Louisiana lawmaker and incoming PhRMA chairman, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler — a Democrat who replaces current PhRMA chairman and AstraZeneca CEO David Brennan on March 18.
However, both PhRMA and Pfizer said the two men looked forward to working with each other.
“Billy has great relations with our board members,” said PhRMA Senior Vice President Ken Johnson.
Brennan added the group was grateful for Tauzin’s “strong leadership and many accomplishments … including his efforts to bring about healthcare reform.”
Still, Republican strategist Scott Reed cited flaws with Tauzin’s approach, saying he “got seduced by Obama world, and it turned out to be a strategic blunder for his industry.”
It is unclear what changes, if any, PhRMA would make in pressing the case for health reform as Democrats try to ramp up support, or what impact the change could have on the industry. PhRMA’s steep pockets all but guarantee its continuing role in shaping health reform negotiations going forward.
As for Tauzin, his tenure is probably best marked by his vocal support for the industry after surviving cancer. He denied his departure was due to any illness. His plans include writing a book, traveling and consulting, a PhRMA source said.
“As the first-ever cancer patient to lead PhRMA as its CEO, I now believe it is time I move on,” Tauzin wrote. “My health is excellent and I look forward to exciting new challenges ahead.”
Click here for the full report
Notes on Raw Milk: an online Journal
February 15, 2010
The Complete Patient
Many dairies that would love to sell raw milk have opted instead for the attractive income, and seeming security, of producing raw milk cheeses instead. They figure they can still get the equivalent of $10 to or more a gallon of milk by producing artisinal cheese, and avoid the hassles with regulators so long as they age it 60 days as required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. I’m an irregular buyer of a number of these cheeses made from raw cow’s, goat’s, and sheep’s milk, and they’re wonderful.
But enforcement of laws and regulations affecting raw milk are made to be changed, especially if it seems that farmers are carving out an attractive market niche and, horror of horrors, actually making farming profitable. Presumably the raw dairy cops at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have been waiting for an illness outbreak among consumers of 60-day-plus aged raw milk cheeses, but with none occurring, they’re moving ahead to protect us regardless.
According to a report in an industry publication, Cheese Reporter, a top dairy official at the FDA, Stephen Sundlof, director of its Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) believes that the 60-day aging period “is not effective in reducing pathogens in raw milk cheeses.” There needs to be “some other risk management steps” that could be applied. Sundlof said at a dairy conference last month. What makes him think that the 60-day period isn’t effective in reducing pathogens? A little birdie must have told him so.
A change in the aging period regulation could put a crimp on production of a number of raw milk soft cheeses like brie and camembert, among others. Some producers already struggle with the 60-day aging requirement, since certain cheeses are best sold sooner than that, and letting them age for 60 days simply reduces their viable shelf lives.
Moreover, the FDA isn’t proposing to extend the aging period, but rather to require processing of the milk, including pasteurization of milk for certain cheeses. Interestingly, another processing option mentioned is “probiotics or competitive exclusion products.” That’s curious, since I understood the FDA didn’t recognize “competitive exclusion” as a means of ensuring raw milk safety. But pasteurization would no doubt compromise the taste and texture, and perhaps the nutritional value, of a number of soft cheeses…and zap another raw nutrient-dense food.
The phenomenon of regulators arbitrarily making trouble for raw milk producers in the absence of illnesses is becoming ever more common. In the Cheese Reporter article, Sundlof is quoted as expressing concerns about the “continued and escalating interest in raw milk consumption.” I love his use of the word “escalating” rather than “growing” or “expanding.” Escalating is a fear-oriented word, as in escalating danger. I don’t ordinarily think of these guys are literary, but clearly Sundlof picks his vocabulary carefully (including when he talks about farmers becoming “pretty clever” in using cow share arrangements).
FDA continues to set the tone, indeed, lead the way, in continuing to “investigate” raw dairies, and encourage state agriculture and public health officials to do the same. The National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA) reports on a Pennsylvania Amish farmer who last week greeted two FDA agents investigating his dairy production. As I reported in my Grist.org article, other states have taken up the FDA’s initiative.
***
Okay, the discussion about the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund was a little rough-and-tumble, but maybe that’s because it’s a discussion that’s been long overdue.
I’ve alluded to farmer criticisms of FTCLDF in a few previous posts. In Wisconsin, the criticisms have bubbled more broadly, and become louder than in any other state.
I appreciate lola granola’s sense of frustration with trying to run a dairy in the midst of the upheaval created by Wisconsin’s regulators. My sense is that the criticisms of FTCLDF grow partly out of unrealistic expectations. When FTCLDF was established in 2007, it conveyed a sense that it would defend all members under fire from government regulators. I just reviewed its member benefits, and it says it provides “potential legal representation to defend distribution of raw milk and other farm products directly to the consumer.” In other words, it will provide legal advice to all members, but will in the final analysis decide which cases it wants to defend, and how it will defend them.
The criticisms also grow out of the fact that FTCLDF is a young and maturing organization. The very concept of an organization dedicated to defending raw dairies and other small farms distributing direct to consumers is a new one. It obviously needs time to gain the necessary experience to feel out the legal system, and determine what kind of load it can handle…and can afford to handle.
I also want to second what several readers have suggested about Pete Kennedy and other lawyers involved with FTCLDF. I’ve come to know Pete very well in the course of reporting on raw milk, and he is about as committed as anyone can be. He’s available to farmers evenings and weekends, and travels to many less-than-glamorous conferences and events—often with his young family in tow—to rally support and inform farmers and consumers alike about what’s happening on the legal front lines. I don’t sense any pocket lining going on—quite the opposite.
I’d also like to second what Bob Hayles, Steve Bemis, Alexis Bogue, and others say about the importance of contacting legislators concerning new legislation and enforcement of existing regulations affecting raw milk and other foods. If there’s nothing going on in your state, contact your Congressional representatives in Washington about opposing the pending federal food safety legislation (which could come up for a vote in the Senate any time in the next few weeks), which will give the FDA vast new powers to limit our food choices beyond the considerable power the agency already has, and applies ruthlessly.
No action is too small. In Framingham, MA, which has been the center of a debate about whether to license a dairy near Boston to sell raw milk, citizens have taken to circulating a petition urging local public health officials to stop stalling and let Doug Stephan sell milk. Politicians and regulators alike notice citizen involvement and opinion.
Click here for the full report
Update on the War on Raw Milk
February 15, 2010
Grist
By David Gumpert
When the current phase of a nearly century-long government campaign to convince American consumers to abandon raw milk launched in 2006, heavy-handed intimidation tactics were the order of the day.
Kentucky farmer Gary Oakes was questioned so intensively by agents from the Ohio Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration while delivering milk to consumers in a Cinciannati parking lot that spring that he was hospitalized three times for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Michigan farmer Richard Hebron had more than $8,000 of dairy products confiscated in a “sting” operation outside Ann Arbor on Columbus Day weekend of 2006; for five months afterwards, he was threatened with criminal prosecution that might have landed him in jail, before finally being let off with a small fine. And Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt endured three raids on his raw dairy—including confiscation of expensive milk and cheese-making equipment—by state police, FDA, and Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture agents during 2007 and 2008.
The fact that the heavy-handed intimidation operations against raw dairies have abated over the last couple years shouldn’t be mistaken for a letup in the federal and state campaign against raw milk, though. Rather, there has been a shift in tactics.
Those earlier assaults on owners of small farms generated enough unfavorable publicity that federal and state authorities have opted for a less distasteful approach. The emphasis now is on ever-closer regulatory oversight of raw milk sellers and distributors, as well as court actions.
A major target over the last year has been private buying groups. These groups of anywhere from a few dozen to hundreds of consumers have organized in states where raw milk either is banned for general sale, or else available only from dairy farms. They have grown out of the exploding popularity of raw milk and the resulting demand by consumers to be able to conveniently obtain raw milk without traveling hours to a farm. In many states, they have long been tolerated … until now.
In Georgia last October, state agriculture authorities confiscated more than 100 gallons of raw milk purchased by members of a buying group from farms in neighboring South Carolina, where raw milk can be legally sold. The group had been in operation for five years without any problem.
In November, Missouri’s attorney general sued a farm couple after their daughters sold raw milk to undercover public health investigators. The girls were distributing the milk to regular buyers from a health store parking lot, which is legal in Missouri. But when the girls apparently agreed to sell some extra milk to the undercover agents, they entered a gray area. Yet undercover agents and state attorney general involvement would seem a little extreme, if indeed there was a transgression.
Even liberal Massachusetts, which has for years tolerated buying groups delivering raw milk from farms in the central and western parts of the state to buyers in the Boston area and elsewhere, has gotten in on the act. It has sent cease-and-desist orders to three buying clubs in the last month, even though Massachusetts hasn’t had a single illness from raw milk in more than a decade.
The commissioner of Massachusetts’ Department of Agricultural Resources, Scott Soares, contends that it’s raw milk’s growing popularity that has made his people nervous, rather than any grand strategy to sabotage raw milk sales. “We’re seeing a lot more interest and growth in raw milk,” he says. “We recognize there’s a demand for raw milk.” His department supports raw milk sales by farms as a means of economic development, but says its main concern about the buying groups is that because they aren’t regulated, there is “a loss of control when milk leaves the farm and there are no guarantees the milk will be held at the proper temperature.”
Ground zero in the regulatory assault on raw milk is Wisconsin, which officially prohibits the sale of raw milk, but has similarly turned a blind eye to private buying groups of various sorts over the last decade. The agency blames ever-bolder raw milk producers and buying groups for upsetting the delicate balance that had existed. According to Donna Gilson, spokesperson for Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection. “Newspaper stories started popping up about farmers selling raw milk. Some of the stories said they had found a legal way to do it. There is not a legal way to do it. They were right in our face with it.”
Since then, at least seven dairy farms and buying groups have either received orders prohibiting their raw milk activities, or demanding detailed information about their activities, from Wisconsin’s DATCP, in anticipation of a stop order. Some dozens of other dairies have received warning letters.
“We’ve never seen anything as aggressive and coordinated as what’s happening in Wisconsin,” says Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which helps defend raw dairies under state and federal assault.
Click here for the full report
Take Fish Oil to Fight Mental Illness
February 3, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
An important new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry reveals that fish oil supplements beat mental illness. The study involved 81 people deemed to be at high risk for psychosis. The randomized, placebo-controlled study provided fish oil supplements to half the study subjects for just 12 weeks (the other half received placebo supplements). The results? While 11 people in the placebo group developed a psychotic disorder, only 2 in the fish oil group did.
Although the study was relatively small, it helps demonstrate the wide-ranging benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to be the key nutritional factor in fish oils. We already know that omega-3 fatty acids / polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) help protect people against cardiovascular disease. We also know they can play a role in preventing diabetes and cancer. It’s little surprise that they also protect against mental illness, given the importance of healthy fatty acids for the functioning of the nervous system.
As the BBC reports, Alison Cobb, from the mental health charity Mind, said in response to this study: “If young people can be treated successfully with fish oils, this is hugely preferable to treating them with antipsychotics, which come with a range of problems from weight gain to sexual dysfunction, whereas omega-3s are actually beneficial to their general state of health.”
She’s exactly right: Antipsychotic drugs actually cause diabetes. They promote blood sugar disorders and weight gain, among other problems. Some psychiatric drugs have also been linked to school shootings and violent outbursts (suicides, murders, etc.). They’re also expensive and they pose an environmental hazard, since many of the chemicals used in those drugs pass right through the body and end up in waters downstream.
Fish oils have none of these negative side effects. In fact, they have positive effects throughout the body. That’s why fish oils are such a remarkable solution to replace antipsychotic drugs: They’re safer, cheaper and they work better!
You’re supposed to keep taking drugs, says Big Pharma
The drug companies, of course, are terrified that people might learn this truth. They want to keep patients on expensive, patented antipsychotic drugs while discrediting “natural remedies” like fish oils or nutritional supplements. The entire war being waged against nutrition and supplements is, of course, nothing more than the pharmaceutical industry trying to protect its own turf by destroying the competition.
Because, let’s face it: For (virtually) every popular pharmaceutical on the market, there’s a nutritional supplement that works better (and that’s also safer and more affordable). Antipsychotic drugs can be replaced with fish oils. Cholesterol drugs can be replaced with B vitamins. Anti-cancer drugs can be replaced with vitamin D and medicinal mushrooms. Diabetes drugs can be replaced with a healthy plant-based diet and targeted supplements. The list goes on and on…
Nutrition works so well that in this study, subjects experienced a protective effect from fish oils for an entire year even though they only took those fish oils for 12 weeks! Imagine how much better the outcome might have been if they continued on the fish oils for the entire year…
Get quality fish oils
Of course, when it comes to fish oils, don’t settle for just any cheap fish oil supplement. Many of the cheaper store-bought brands are largely made of olive oil filler combined with a tiny amount of fish oil extract. Search out quality supplements or oils from companies like Moxxor, Nordic Naturals or Carlson Labs.
Make sure your supplements are free from heavy metals, pesticides and other residues. Make sure they are harvested in a truly sustainable way, and make sure you can trust the source to provide consistent quality.
Fish oils can provide astonishing health benefits. If the medical industry were truly honest about researching what works for patients rather than what makes money for drug companies, they would have openly prescribed fish oils long ago (and abandoned many of the antipsychotic drugs they still push).
But as you already know, the pharmaceutical industry isn’t interested in what works for people unless it’s something they can sell at monopoly prices. They don’t want people to know about natural remedies, nutritional cures or healing foods. They would much rather see people stay ignorant about those things while pumping their minds full of advertisements and propaganda that ridiculously suggests the human brain is somehow deficient in Big Pharma’s patented chemicals and that the only way you’ll ever be truly healthy, happy or sane is to keep swallowing their pills for the rest of your life.
The real insanity in the world is not in the minds of mental patients; it’s in the evil plans of the FDA, the WHO and the pharmaceutical cartel — all of whom conspire to peddle dangerous medications when far safer, more natural and more effective alternatives are readily available.
Abstract of study from the Archives of General Psychiatry
Long-Chain Omega-3 Fatty Acids for Indicated Prevention of Psychotic Disorders
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/co…
A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial
G. Paul Amminger, MD; Miriam R. Sch�fer, MD; Konstantinos Papageorgiou, MD; Claudia M. Klier, MD; Sue M. Cotton, PhD; Susan M. Harrigan, MSc; Andrew Mackinnon, PhD; Patrick D. McGorry, MD, PhD; Gregor E. Berger, MD
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010;67(2):146-154.
Context: The use of antipsychotic medication for the prevention of psychotic disorders is controversial. Long-chain omega-3 (omega-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) may be beneficial in a range of psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia. Given that omega-3 PUFAs are generally beneficial to health and without clinically relevant adverse effects, their preventive use in psychosis merits investigation.
Objective: To determine whether omega-3 PUFAs reduce the rate of progression to first-episode psychotic disorder in adolescents and young adults aged 13 to 25 years with subthreshold psychosis.
Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted between 2004 and 2007.
Setting: Psychosis detection unit of a large public hospital in Vienna, Austria.
Participants: Eighty-one individuals at ultra-high risk of psychotic disorder.
Interventions: A 12-week intervention period of 1.2-g/d omega-3 PUFA or placebo was followed by a 40-week monitoring period; the total study period was 12 months.
Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome measure was transition to psychotic disorder. Secondary outcomes included symptomatic and functional changes. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in erythrocytes was used to index pretreatment vs posttreatment fatty acid composition.
Results: Seventy-six of 81 participants (93.8%) completed the intervention. By study’s end (12 months), 2 of 41 individuals (4.9%) in the omega-3 group and 11 of 40 (27.5%) in the placebo group had transitioned to psychotic disorder (P = .007). The difference between the groups in the cumulative risk of progression to full-threshold psychosis was 22.6% (95% confidence interval, 4.8-40.4). Omega-3 Polyunsaturated fatty acids also significantly reduced positive symptoms (P = .01), negative symptoms (P = .02), and general symptoms (P = .01) and improved functioning (P = .002) compared with placebo. The incidence of adverse effects did not differ between the treatment groups.
Conclusions: Long-chain omega-3 PUFAs reduce the risk of progression to psychotic disorder and may offer a safe and efficacious strategy for indicated prevention in young people with subthreshold psychotic states.
Click here for the full report.
390 Tons of U.S. Beef Recalled
January 19, 2010
Yahoo News
By Reuters
Some 390 tons of ground beef produced by a California meat packer, some of it nearly two years ago, is being recalled for fear of potentially deadly E. coli bacterium tainting, U.S. officials said on Monday.
The beef was produced by Huntington Meat Packing Inc of Montebello, California, and shipped mainly to California outlets, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety arm said.
An initial problem, in ground beef shipped by the plant from January 5 to January 15, was discovered during a regular safety check, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said.
It said it had received no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of the recalled products.
During a follow-up review of the company’s records, government inspectors determined additional products produced and shipped in 2008 to be of concern because they may have been contaminated with E.coli, the service said in a notice on its web site.
This batch was produced from February 19, 2008, to May 15, 2008. It also had been shipped to distribution centers, restaurants and hotels within California, the notice said.
“While these products are normally used fresh, the establishment is taking this action out of concern that some product may still be frozen and in commerce,” it said.
E. coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause kidney failure in the most serious cases.
The service said it routinely conducts checks to verify that recalling firms notify customers, including restaurants, of the recall and that steps are taken to make sure the product is no longer available to consumers.
Click here for the full report
