A week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning against eating spinach, a Salinas, Calif., produce company voluntarily recalled 8,500 cartons of lettuce Sunday after tests found \o7E. coli \f7contamination in the water used for irrigation.
There have been no reported illnesses from consumers of Foxy brand green-leaf lettuce, which was shipped last week by the Nunes Co., one of the nation's largest vegetable suppliers. It is not known yet if any of the lettuce was tainted with \o7E. Coli\f7.
The FDA and California Department of Health Services are investigating to determine the strand and source of contamination, and whether it stems from the same dangerous form of \o7E. Coli \f7found in spinach that was linked to three deaths and nearly 200 illnesses nationwide.
"This is a precautionary measure based upon the recent events in the produce industry and our concern for our customers," said Tom Nunes Jr., president of the company. "No other products except green-leaf lettuce are a part of this recall."
Nunes said his company had recovered about 8,200 cartons of lettuce, which were shipped to distributors Oct. 3-6. Each carton holds 24 heads. He said the remaining 200 to 300 cartons might have been distributed in California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Idaho or Montana. Because the problem was caught early, company officials don't think much of the lettuce made it to grocery stores.
The company's recalled green-leaf lettuce has a V-shaped frame with curly, light green to deep green leaves. It is packaged in a cellophane sleeve with a red Foxy logo on it and the number 6SL0024.
The recall added to the anxiety in California's Central Coast farming community, which is still reeling from the largest \o7E. Coli \f7outbreak ever recorded in the Salinas Valley area.
On Sept. 14, federal officials asked consumers nationwide to avoid fresh spinach. The next day, Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista, Calif., issued a voluntary recall of all its packaged products containing the fresh greens.
The FDA later narrowed the warning to spinach from three counties on the Central Coast. On Sept. 29, officials altered their warning again, limiting it to products that already had been recalled.
As of Oct. 6, 199 cases in 26 states have been linked through DNA testing to the outbreak strain of \o7E. coli\f7 O157:H7, which causes an estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths in the United States each year. Infection may cause diarrhea, bloody stools, kidney failure or death. Children and the elderly are most at risk.
