More than 125 products have been recalled in an investigation into a deadly salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter used in processed foods and in institutions, with dog biscuits and diet granola bars among the latest on a list that is growing.
And growing.
"I don't think we can determine how many more" products will be recalled, Stephen Sundlof, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration, said Wednesday. The outbreak has sickened hundreds and may have killed six people.
The FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state officials have traced sources of Salmonella typhimurium contamination to a plant in Blakely, Ga., owned by Peanut Corp. of America, which makes peanut butter and peanut paste made of ground, roasted peanuts.
Those products are distributed to food manufacturers to be used as ingredients in such processed foods as cakes, cookies, crackers, candies, cereal and ice cream. Peanut butter from the plant also is shipped to institutions, including long-term care facilities and cafeterias.
The company has stopped production at the Blakely plant, the FDA said.
Over the weekend, the CDC interviewed 57 people who had become ill, as well as hundreds of healthy people, about what they had eaten, said Dr. Robert Tauxe of the CDC, who joined Sundlof in a telephone conference call with reporters.
Tauxe said information from the interviews led the agency to packaged peanut butter crackers. Additional investigation led to crackers that Kellogg Co. had recalled the day before those interviews took place.
On Sunday, Peanut Corp. expanded its voluntary recall to include more products and lot numbers of products from the plant manufactured on or after July 1. Company records of suppliers and customers have been turned over to federal authorities, Sundlof said.
Asked whether the Georgia plant was thought to be the sole source of the outbreak, Sundlof said, "That is our assumption at this point."
In its investigation of the outbreak, inspectors found salmonella at the Blakely plant, but it was a different strain than the one implicated in the illnesses, Sundlof said. One sample was found in a floor crack near the washroom. A second was found on the floor near some pallets.
Even though the strain is different, Sundlof said, "those salmonella are not supposed to be there."
