Seriously, right before Thanksgiving, we have to worry about the turkey being contaminated now???
Maybe I will make a lasagna instead.
Thanksgiving is less than a week away, and federal health officials are still trying to identify the source of a salmonella illness outbreak linked to raw turkey products that has spread to 35 states and sickened 164 people.
The outbreak, which started a year ago, has sent 63 people to the hospital. One person in California has died. The salmonella strain has been found in raw turkey pet food in Minnesota, raw turkey products collected from people’s homes and live turkeys from several states, indicating the bacteria is widespread in the industry.
No common supplier has been identified, according to officials at the Agriculture Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so consumer groups are asking for the names of the brands and the slaughterhouses and processing facilities where the outbreak strain has been found in samples.
“When you are coming up on a major holiday where you know consumers are likely to consume the food in question, we think the agency has an obligation to give consumers whatever information it does have,” said Laura MacCleery, policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Health officials say the investigation has been complex because the strain has been identified in a wide range of products, and investigators have been interviewing sick people to trace it back to a single source. Without a source or supplier of the product or products that are making people sick, officials say the best advice for consumers is to handle raw turkey carefully — including washing their hands, cutting boards and other utensils after touching raw turkey — and to cook it thoroughly to prevent illness.
Salmonella causes more than 1 million illnesses every year, and the food is the main source. Symptoms of salmonella infection include diarrhea, abdominal pain, and fever. Symptoms usually begin within 12 to 96 hours after exposure, but they can begin as long as one or two weeks after a person is exposed to the bacteria. Most people infected with the bacteria recover within a week without treatment, but serious cases may require hospitalizations for invasive infections, such as meningitis and bloodstream infections.
