Food Poisoning Law Blog : Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : PritzkerLaw : Food Safety, Outbreaks & Recalls

An Ohio E. coli outbreak has prompted a ground beef recall by Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. as state and federal health experts investigate a possible connection. The E. coli O157:H7 illnesses are located in Butler County, an area north of Cincinnati centered in Hamilton, Ohio.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service published the Tyson recall notice (see below) for 131,300 pounds of ground beef after the agency was notified of the Ohio outbreak, which has illness onset dates rangining from September 8 through September 11. The Class I High Health Risk recall did not say how many people have been sickened or whether the outbreak involves cases of HUS, or hemolytic uremic syndrome.

National E. coli lawyers at PritzkerOlsen, P.A., also are investigating this ground beef outbreak, providing free consultation for victims interested in an Ohio E. coli lawsuit at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free). Our law firm is one of the very few in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation and we have collected tens of millions of dollars for E. coli victims around the country.

USDA said the on-going investigation involved collecting leftover ground beef from the "patients’ home" on Sept. 19. The sample tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 by the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s laboratory.

The recall involves certain Kroger-brand ground beef, Butcher's Brand ground beef and generic label ground beef shipped to distribution centers in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina,  Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Illinois, Missouri, New York, Texas and Wisconsin. The potentially contaminated ground beef was produced by Tyson in Emporia, Kansas.

September 2011 Tyson ground beef E. coli O157:H7 recall:

• 5-pound chubs of Kroger-brand "GROUND BEEF 73% LEAN - 27% FAT," packed in 40-pound cases containing eight chubs. Cases bear an identifying product code of "D-0211 QW." These products were produced on Aug. 23, 2011 and were shipped to distribution centers in Ind. and Tenn. for retail sale.
• 3-pound chubs of Butcher’s Brand "GROUND BEEF 73% LEAN - 27% FAT," packed in 36-pound cases each containing 12 chubs. Cases bear an identifying product code of "D-0211 LWIF." These products were produced on Aug. 23, 2011 and were shipped to distribution centers in N.C. and S.C. for retail sale.
• 3-pound chubs of a generic label "GROUND BEEF 73% LEAN - 27% FAT," packed in 36-pound cases each containing 12 chubs. Cases bear an identifying product code of "D-0211 LWI." These products were produced on Aug. 23, 2011 and were shipped to distribution centers in Del., Fla., Ga., Md., Ill., Ind., Mo., N.Y., Ohio, Tenn., Texas and Wis. for retail sale.

The products subject to recall have a "BEST BEFORE OR FREEZE BY" date of "SEP 12 2011" and the establishment number "245D" ink jetted along the package seam.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

An unopened bag of shredded romaine lettuce distributed by Freshway Foods has tested positive for the same strain of E. coli O145 that has sickened at least 19 people in Ohio, Michigan and New York.

That announcement from the Food and Drug Administration was paired with news that lettuce recalled by Ohio-based Freshway came from the same farm in Yuma, Arizona, that supplied Vaughn Foods of Moore, Oklahoma.

Now Vaughn is recalling romaine lettuce with “use‐by” dates of May 9 and May 10. As was the case at Freshway, the recalled romaine lettuce distributed by Vaughan Foods was sold to restaurants and food service facilities and was not available for purchase as a grocery item. 

To date, there have been 19 confirmed and additional unconfirmed cases of E. coli O145 infections in Michigan, Ohio, and New York. These illnesses include 12 individuals who have been hospitalized, and three with a potentially life threatening complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

HUS is a serious condition in which the body’s blood-clotting mechanisms are altered, causing blocked circulation or bleeding in the brain or kidneys.

Federal and state investigators are attempting to determine the point in the supply chain where the contamination occurred and are investigating a farm in the Yuma, Arizona area from which the romaine lettuce was harvested. Lettuce harvested from other geographic areas does not appear to be associated with this outbreak, the FDA news release said.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

E. coli O145 has sickened dozens of people in Michigan, Ohio and now New York.

Health officials have not released much information, but this is what is being reported by health departments and news sources:

• E. coli O145 cases in Michigan, Ohio and New York have been genetically linked, meaning the same food source probably made these people sick;
• The Ohio Department of Agriculture is testing four food samples and food items also are being tested in Michigan;
• Ground beef is not highly suspected in Michigan;
• Students at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan are among those sickened in the outbreak;
• The food that was contaminated with E. coli O145 was most likely served at restaurants, cafeterias and other eating establishments.

Pritzker Olsen law firm is actively investigating this outbreak. Even though the food source of this outbreak has not been determined, it is not too early to contact an E. coli lawyer at our law firm for a free consultation regarding your legal rights: 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE) or submit our online consultation form.  We are not paid unless you win.

We have recently settled an E. coli case in Michigan and are litigating E. coli cases in Ohio.  Read about a Michigan E. coli lawsuit and an Ohio E. coli lawsuit.

Keywords: E. coli O145 outbreak, Ann Arbor, Michigan, lawyer, Columbus, Ohio, attorney, Ohio State University, University of Michigan, Buffalo, New York, food poisoning, lawsuit, Ecoli 0145.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The E. coli O145 outbreak in Ohio and Michigan has spread to New York, where at lest 13 illnesses are suspected of being linked to the outbreak.

All together, the outbreak may have sickened around 50 people and is not contained.

Public health officials in the three states are being assisted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in trying to determine the cause of the outbreak, which has included students at Ohio State University in Columbus and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

New York State Health Department spokesman Jeffrey Hammond said in an e-mail to the Columbus Dispatch that the agency will soon issue a statewide health-care provider alert.

One New York illness has been definitely linked to the Michigan-Ohio E. coli O145 outbreak and a dozen others are suspected of being linked, the newspaper reported.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

E. coli O157:H7 was declared an adulterant in ground beef in 1994, but USDA has failed to put six additional strains of shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC) in the same category. 

Members of the food safety community, including law firm Pritzker Olsen, have been calling for the expanded ruling so that producers of meat are required to test for the potentially deadly pathogens to help protect our food supply.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Fred Pritzker, founder and president of national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, has no mercy for food manufacturers and restaurants that distribute and serve food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 or other lethal pathogens. His strident opinions are borne out of the experience of seeing too many people die or become permanently disabled from food poisoning. The latest victim is 7-year-old Abigail "Abby" Fenstermaker of Cleveland, Ohio. Friends of Brian and Nicole Fenstermaker, the parents, have organized a community fundraiser for the evening of Friday, May 29, at The Clevelander bar and restaurant near Jacobs Field. For more information, click here. To reach Mr. Pritzker, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or email him at fhp@pritzkerlaw.com

By FRED PRITZKER

On May 21, 2009, Valley Meats LLC, of Coal Valley, IllInois, recalled 95,898 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. This action followed an investigation by Cleveland, Ohio, health officials who identified two eateries that possibly served burgers tainted with E. coli O157:H7.

Three Cleveland area residents who became ill in April apparently had eaten at  two establishments, the VFW Hall in North Olmstead and Deekers Side Tracks in Mentor, Ohio. A 7- year-old Cleveland girl died from E. coli O157:H7-related complications (Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome – HUS).

This devastating loss was utterly preventable and points to a food safety system breakdown on many levels.

Federal, state and local law prohibits the sale of adulterated food. If Valley Meats LLC distributed and sold meat products contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 it means the company violated laws that have been on the books for more than a hundred years and failed to properly test and detect lethal pathogens before the products left its facility.

It also means the restaurants that served this poisoned food similarly violated the law. Whether the meat was adulterated when it entered the restaurant, there is no question and no doubt that with proper cooking and handling, any pathogen in the food could and should have been killed off before it caused harm.

Coincidental to this tragedy and illustrative of it, preliminary data published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) indicates that the estimated incidence of E. coli O157:H7 infections did not change significantly when compared with the preceding 3 years. In fact, the percentage of ground beef samples yielding E. coli O157:H7 actually doubled in 2008 compared to 2007. What’s more, none of the target goals established by the federal government in its food safety initiative, Healthy People 2010, were met.

I am one of the few and most experienced food safety lawyers in the United States. I have represented foodborne illness survivors in virtually every major foodborne illness outbreak during the last several years.

In virtually every one of those cases, people were sickened or killed not because laws were lacking or technology was insufficient, but rather because of three primal deficiencies:  ignorance, sloth and greed.  As the Cleveland case illustrates, the companies responsible for this outbreak were either too stupid, too lazy or too greedy or a combination of all three, to prevent the lifelong losses that occurred.

Right now, my law firm represents wrongful death victims of the Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella outbreak that occurred when company officials knowingly shipped Salmonella-laced peanut products.

Within the last week we learned that another nut processor, Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., in California knowingly shipped Salmonella-positive nuts for six months.
These outbreaks and the Cleveland case indicate a shocking lack of responsibility and accountability.

It is only fitting that such wrongdoers be held accountable for the harms and losses they caused. But in these cases that means more than just a collection of insurance proceeds. It means actual accountability – the kind that comes from criminal prosecution and payment of punitive damages that actually punish wrongdoers and serves as a deterrent to prevent future outbreaks.

Without such deterrence, we can expect more of the same. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Share Link

According to the CDC, the E. coli outbreak that has been linked to Kroger ground beef and Nebraska Beef, Ltd. ground beef components now involves 5 states: Indiana (1), Kentucky (1), Michigan (20 according to the CDC and 22 according to the Michigan Department of Community Health), New York (1), and Ohio (21). The illnesses began between May 30 and June 24, 2008. Patients range in age from 4 to 78 years with a median age of 20 years.

Twenty-one ill persons have been hospitalized, according to the CDC. One patient has developed hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), an illness that can develop from an E. coli O157:H7 infection. HUS can cause kidney failure (renal failure) and damage to other organs. 

Health officials have linked Kroger ground beef to this outbreak.  According to the CDC:

State health and agriculture departments tested ground beef recovered from several patient residences that was purchased at Kroger® retail stores in Michigan and Ohio. Molecular fingerprinting testing conducted by the Ohio and Michigan Departments of Health and Agriculture Laboratories, in collaboration with PulseNet, the national molecular subtyping network for foodborne disease surveillance, on E. coli O157 isolates isolated from these ground beef samples have confirmed the isolates to be the outbreak strain of E. coli O157.

CDC's OutbreakNet Team conducted a multi-state case-control study in collaboration with health authorities in Ohio and Michigan to epidemiologically examine exposures that would be related to illness. The data indicate a significant association between illness and eating ground beef purchased at one of several Kroger® Company stores in Michigan and Ohio. CDC has provided these results to the USDA-FSIS and public health agencies in Michigan and Ohio.

On June 25, 2008, a recall was announced for ground beef sold at Kroger® Co. Stores in Michigan and Ohio. On July 3, the Kroger® Co. expanded the June 25th recall to include ground beef products from Kroger® establishments outside of Michigan and Ohio.

Kroger used Nebraska Beef, Ltd. ground beef components to make the Kroger ground beef involved in this outbreak. According to the USDA:

Nebraska Beef, Ltd., was identified as a common supplier to those stores in addition to two federally inspected establishments where FSIS obtained a positive ground beef sample that was matched to the outbreak strain.

On June 30, 2008, a recall of 531,707 pounds of ground beef components from Nebraska Beef Ltd. was announced. On July 3, 2008, the Nebraska Beef recall expanded to include all beef manufacturing trimmings and other products intended for use in raw ground beef produced between May 16 and June 26, 2008, totaling approximately 5.3 million pounds.

Our law firm has filed a lawsuit against Kroger Co. and Nebraska Beef, Ltd. on behalf of a victim of this E. coli outbreak.  To contact our law firm regarding this lawsuit, please call 1-888-377-8900 (toll-free) or email attorney Fred Pritzker.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Share Link