Posted by: foodbuglady | April 26, 2012

Two Salmonella Strains In Sushi Outbreak – 200 Ill

The outbreak of Salmonella illnesses traced to eating sushi containing contaminated raw yellowfin tuna known as Nakaochi scrape has grown to encompass 200 confirmed illnesses in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Vermont was the latest state to be added to the list.

There is no longer even the slightest shadow of a doubt that the scrape yellowfin – which resembles ground tuna – is the source of this outbreak. Both FDA and the state of Wisconsin have confirmed the Salmonella Bareilly outbreak strain in food samples.

Two days ago, Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection laboratory reported confirming the presence of the outbreak strain of Salmonella Bareilly in the recalled yellowfin tuna and in a spicy tuna roll made with the recalled tuna. The DNA fingerprinting of the Salmonella was carried out by the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, located at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Earlier today, FDA chimed in with its own announcement. FDA labs reported finding the Salmonella Bareilly outbreak strain in a sample of Nakaochi scrape yellowfin tuna obtained from a distributor of the raw fish product. The same sample contained a strain of Salmonella Nchanga that was indistinguishable from bacteria isolated from an additional cluster of 10 infections in 5 states. FDA also recovered Salmonella Bareilly from a sample of Nakaochi scrape yellowfin tuna obtained from a different distributor.

As a result of FDA’s lab findings, CDC has expanded its definition of the outbreak to include both Salmonella Bareilly and Salmonella Nchanga.

The raw tuna product was imported from India. On April 19th, FDA’s New Delhi office initiated a seafood (HACCP) inspection of the manufacturer’s facility (Moon Fishery Pvt Ltd, Aroor, India). The agency was informed that April 12, 2012 was the last day of tuna processing at the firm due to the seasonal nationwide ban on tuna harvest from the Indian Ocean. FDA has promised to post the inspection results once the report has been finalized.

CDC advises retailers and establishments not to serve raw recalled frozen raw yellowfin tuna product, known as Nakaochi Scrape, from Moon Marine USA Corporation. Establishments and retailers should check with their suppliers to confirm the source of the tuna product.

CDC offers the following Advice to Consumers

  • Do not eat the recalled frozen raw yellowfin tuna product, known as Nakaochi Scrape, from Moon Marine USA Corporation. This product is tuna backmeat that is scraped from the bones of tuna and may be used to make sushi, particularly “spicy tuna” sushi.
  • If you purchase “spicy tuna” or other sushi, sashimi, ceviche, or similar dishes that might contain Nakaochi Scrape tuna product from a restaurant or grocery store, check with the establishment to make sure that it does not contain raw recalled product from Moon Marine USA Corporation. When in doubt, don’t eat it.
  • Persons who think they might have become ill from eating possibly contaminated raw Nakaochi Scrape tuna product should consult their healthcare providers.
  • Infants, older adults, pregnant women, and persons with impaired immune systems are more likely than others to develop severe illness and should not eat raw or partially cooked fish or shellfish. If you are unsure of your risk, ask your healthcare provider.

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Posted in recalls, Salmonella | Tags: Food, Salmonella Bareilly

Posted by: foodbuglady | April 26, 2012

Recalls and Alerts: April 26, 2012

Here is today’s list of food safety recalls, product withdrawals, allergy alerts and miscellaneous compliance issues. The live links will take you directly to the official recall notices and company news releases that contain detailed information for each recall and alert.

If you would like to receive automatic email alerts for all new articles posted on eFoodAlert, please submit your request using the sidebar link.

United States

  • Allergy Alert: Reser’s Fine Foods, Inc. (Beaverton, OR) recalls Mrs. Weaver’s Pimento Spread (7 oz; Use by Aug/05/12; Plant ID & Time 20 HH:MM; UPC 71117.00003), because the spread may have been packaged into containers marked Ham Salad. The Ham Salad label does not list milk as an ingredient. The recalled spread was distributed in AR, AZ, FL, LA, MS, OK, TX, and WA between April 11, 2012 and April 17, 2012.
  • Allergy Alert: Krispak, Inc. (Grand Rapids, MI) recalls GFS® Hostess Candy Mix (8-48 oz packages; Code date 088 12), because some of the cases of Candy Mix were inadvertently put into GFS® Chocolate Sprinkles packages, which do not declare the ingredients wheat, milk and egg, all of which may be present in the Candy Mix. The affected product wasdistributed between April 5th and 19th to Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee Gordon Food Service Marketplace Stores.
  • Food Safety Recall: LA Star Seafood Co. Inc. (Los Angeles, CA) recalls Vobla Dry fish and Vobla Smoked fish (20-lb bulk boxes; no lot numbers or expiry dates), because the fish were improperly eviscerated and, therefore, have the potential to be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum. The recalled products were distributed and sold at: Arbat Store, Utah; European Importing, Russian Import, and M and M Market, Northern California; Golden Farms Market, Karabagh Market, and Tashkent Market, Southern California; Global Importing, Oregon; Solomon’s Groceries and Europa, Colorado between February 28th and April 23rd, 2012.
  • Pet Food Safety Recall: Diamond Pet Foods recalls Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul Dog Food (“certain lots” – to be updated) after lab tests conducted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture found Salmonella in a sample of the pet food
  • Pharmaceutical Product Safety Recall: American Regent recalls Epinephrine Injection, USP, 1:1000 (1mL ampules; Lot #1395; Expiry July 2012), due to the presence of discoloration and small visible particles in some ampules. The recalled product was wholesalers and distributors nationwide. Hospitals, Retail Pharmacies, Clinics, Physician Offices, and other healthcare facilities and providers are instructed to stop using the recalled batch of product and immediately quarantine any outstanding supply of Lot #1395 for return.

Canada

  • Allergy Alert: Le Grand Marché Col-Fax inc (Laval, QC) recalls a number of pastries and prepared foods (sold up to and including 23 April 2012), due to the presence of undeclared soy and/or sulfites. Please refer to the recall notice for a list of affected products.
  • Allergy Alert: Transhing Investment Inc. (QC) recalls Koh-Kae Peanuts with Thai Tom Yum Spicy Flavour Coated (230g; All codes; UPC 8 852023 666549) due to the presence of chemical additives and undeclared shellfish and milk. The recalled product was sold in Ontario and Quebec.
  • Allergy Alert: Bramic Sales recalls Koh-Kae Peanuts Tom Yum Flavour Coated (240g; All codes; UPC 8 852023 666549), due to the presence of chemical additives and undeclared shellfish. The recalled product was sold in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.
  • Food Safety Notification (EU #2012.0586): Listeria monocytogenes in raw milk sheep cheese coated with herbs from France; distributed to Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France and Germany.

Europe

Some supermarket chains post recall notices on their web sites for the convenience of customers. To see whether a recalled food was carried by your favorite supermarket, follow the live link to the supermarket’s recall web site.

*The Kroger umbrella encompasses numerous supermarket, marketplace and convenience store chains, listed on the Kroger corporate home page.
**Includes Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, Dominick’s, Genuardi’s, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Carrs and Pak N’ Save.

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Posted in allergy, Clostridium, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, recall roundup, Salmonella | Tags: Food, Health, Pet Health

Posted by: foodbuglady | April 25, 2012

Wisconsin Ag Lab Finds Salmonella Bareilly In Recalled Tuna

Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection lab has recovered Salmonella from a sample of recalled tuna and from a spicy tuna roll made with the recalled tuna. The state’s Laboratory of Hygiene confirmed that the Salmonella found in both of these samples matches the DNA fingerprint of the outbreak strain of Salmonella Bareilly that has sickened more than 160 people in 20 states and the District of Columbia.

Moon Marine USA Corporation recalled 58,828 lbs of Nakaochi Scrape AA or AAA – a frozen raw yellowfin tuna product – on April 13th after epidemiological and traceback investigations carried out by federal, state and local authorities linked the product to a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Bareilly illnesses. The raw tuna product, which resembles ground tuna, was imported into the USA from India. FDA also issued two Import Alerts (#16-81 and #16-133) authorizing the detention without physical examination of fresh and frozen tuna from Moon Fishery India Pvt Ltd, the producer of the contaminated tuna meat.

The recalled product was not distributed for retail sale to consumers, but may have been used to make sushi, sashimi, ceviche and similar dishes available in restaurants and grocery stores. While the company name and “Nakaochi Scrape AA or AAA were printed on boxes of product supplied to distributors, the tuna may not be readily identifiable by consumers as being from implicated lots.

News of the Salmonella Bareilly outbreak first broke on April 3rd. As of the CDC’s last update (April 20th), 26 people are known to have been hospitalized out of the 160 confirmed case patients. Reported onset dates for illnesses range from January 28th to April 10th. The youngest outbreak victim is 4 years of age; the oldest is 78 years old. Two-thirds of the confirmed case patients are female.

Confirmed cases of Salmonella Bareilly illnesses have been reported mainly from the eastern half of the continental USA; the westernmost cases are in Texas. Wisconsin has confirmed 15 cases in three counties, including Milwaukee (6 cases), Washington (2 cases) and Waukesha (7 cases). Three Wisconsin residents were hospitalized; all 15 have recovered from their illnesses.

FDA has this advice for consumers:

  • Because raw seafood is not fully cooked to assure that pathogens are destroyed, it is not considered as “safe” as cooked seafood. The handling of raw seafood can also affect the safety of the product. Because the tuna may have been broken into unmarked sublots and may not be readily identifiable, consumers should take precautions in choosing to eat raw Nakaochi Scrape and be sure that it is not from the implicated lots.
  • If you purchase “spicy tuna” or other sushi, sashimi, ceviche, or similar dishes that might contain Nakaochi Scrape from a restaurant or grocery store, check with the establishment to make sure that it does not contain raw recalled product from Moon Marine USA Corporation, also known as MMI. When in doubt, don’t eat it.
  • Consumers who think they might have become ill from eating possibly contaminated raw Nakaochi Scrape should consult their health care providers.

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Posted in recalls, Salmonella | Tags: Food, Salmonella Bareilly

Posted by: foodbuglady | April 24, 2012

Excedrin Return Still Months Away

Novartis hopes to gradually restart production at its Lincoln, Nebraska manufacturing plant as early as May, and resume shipping some products at mid-year. But a return to full production will probably not happen until 2013.

Production will restart on a line-by-line basis, according to David Epstein, Division Head of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, who offered a status update during the Novartis 1st Quarter 2012 Earnings Conference Call earlier today (April 24th)

“[W]e are in the middle of quality remediation activities at Lincoln,” Epstein said, “and we are making good progress. We had a meeting with the FDA recently, and shared with them our startup plan for the plant. We will begin production in May and we will resume shipments mid year.”

Epstein indicated that the “ramp up” would be slower than expected. “We’ll have a relatively limited portfolio in the back half of the year. So we have signed up some third-party manufacturers for some key products,” he explained. Neither Epstein nor any other participant in the conference call specified the order in which Excedrin and other products manufactured at that plant would reappear. Nor was there any indication as to which products would be farmed out to third-party manufacturers.

Novartis suspended production at its Lincoln facility on January 8, 2012 and recalled more than  after a FDA inspection revealed flagrant and long-standing deficiencies in the company’s quality assurance and consumer complaint procedures. The shutdown of the Lincoln plant also has affected availability of a number of veterinary products, including Interceptor, a popular medication for preventing heartworm in dogs and cats.

I asked FDA for a description of the steps usually undertaken in a situation such as this one. After making the usual disclaimer that “FDA does not comment on an ongoing investigation,” Shelly Burgess of FDA’s Office of Public Affairs offered the following explanation:

“FDA investigators conduct routine inspections at drug manufacturing facilities to determine, among other things, compliance with the current good manufacturing practice regulations. When the investigator finds significant deviations from those minimum standards, he or she lists the deviations on a document called a form FDA 483, or the “483,” and issues that to the manufacturer at the conclusion of the inspection. By providing this notice, the Agency gives a manufacturer the opportunity to take voluntary and prompt corrective action. The manufacturer may submit a written response to the Agency explaining how it has corrected the violations or plans to do so, or explain why it disagrees with any of the listed observations. In most cases, manufacturers comply voluntarily but in some instances FDA sends the manufacturer a warning letter or an untitled letter. In addition, where appropriate, FDA may pursue enforcement action such as seizure and injunction.”

“The timeline can vary considerably depending on the extent of the corrective actions that are required for the firm to achieve compliance and demonstrate sufficient controls over manufacturing to produce acceptable quality drugs. Some deficiencies can be corrected within hours or days of notification such as when re-training an employee or fixing a piece of equipment. Other corrective actions may take days or months, such as qualifying a complicated manufacturing operation or validating a new test method.”

It’s not surprising that the restart in Lincoln will be slower than Novartis had originally hoped, or that the company is being vague regarding which products will receive priority when production at the facility resumes. No one wants a repeat of the problems that led to the recalls and shutdown.

Nevertheless, the delay will result in additional headaches for consumers, pharmacists, doctors, and veterinarians as the product shortages continue.

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Posted in recalls | Tags: Excedrin, novartis

Posted by: foodbuglady | April 24, 2012

Recalls and Alerts: April 24, 2012

Here is today’s list of food safety recalls, product withdrawals, allergy alerts and miscellaneous compliance issues. The live links will take you directly to the official recall notices and company news releases that contain detailed information for each recall and alert.

If you would like to receive automatic email alerts for all new articles posted on eFoodAlert, please submit your request using the sidebar link.

United States

  • FDA Warning Letter: FDA warns Big O’ Smokehouse, Inc. (Caledonia, MI) that a January 2012 inspection of the company’s food and seafood processing facility revealed that you have serious violations of the seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulation.
  • FDA Warning Letter: FDA warns Kelley’s Katch (Savannah, TN) that a February 2012 inspection of the company’s seafood processing facility revealed serious violations of the seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulation.
  • FDA Warning Letter: FDA warns Pescaderia La Marinera del 23 SA de CV (Puerto Juarez, Cancun, Mexico) that a September 2011 inspection of the company’s seafood processing facility found serious violations of the seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulation.
  • Food Safety Advisory (California): The advises that the annual quarantine of all sport-harvested mussel species along the California coast begins May 1, 2012. The quarantine, which is intended to protect the public from paralytic shellfish poisoning and domoic acid poisoning, applies to all species of mussels harvested along the California coast, as well as all bays and estuaries.
  • Food Safety Advisory: USDA reports having detected a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow from central California. The animal was never presented for slaughter for human consumption, and there is no risk to the food supply or human health, according to USDA. BSE (“mad cow disease”) is not transmitted in milk.

Canada

  • Allergy Alert: Marché du Campanile inc, dba L’Intermarché recalls Saucisse Italienne Forte, Saucisse Italienne Douce and Boudin de Sang de Porc, due to the presence of undeclared wheat. The company also recalls Saucisse merguez due to the presence of undeclared soy, wheat and modified dairy products. The recalled foods were sold in variable weight formats on or before April 23, 2012.
  • Allergy Alert: Commerce Caneast Inc. and Transhing Investment Inc. (QC) recall Koh-Kae Peanuts with Thai Tom Yum Spicy Flavour Coated (230g; all lot codes; UPC 8 852023 666549), due to the presence of a chemical additive and undeclared shellfish/crustacean. The recalled product was sold in Quebec.
  • Allergy Alert: Benfield Inc. recalls Plain Soy Beverage (Unknown brand – Chinese characters only; 2L; Best before May 16/2012 and May 20/2012; UPC 6), due to the presence of undeclared sesame seeds. The recalled product was sold in Ontario.
  • Health Hazard Alert/Outbreak Alert Update: Canadian Food Inspection Agency warns the public not to consume whole fesikh mullet, cut up fesikh mullet in oil, and whole fesikh shad (Various count and weight packages; sold from Lotus Catering and Fine Food, 1960 Lawrence Ave. E, Toronto, ON, on or before April 17, 2012) because they may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum. Three cases of botulism have been reported in Peel Region, where victims shared a common meal at a gathering on April 16th. The meal included prepared salted mullet (fesikh), which is consumed primarily during an Egyptian holiday marking the start of spring.

Europe

Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands

  • Food Safety Alert (Hong Kong): The Centre for Food Safety reports that one sample of balsamic vinaigrette imported from the USA and another sample of sports drink powder imported from Japan were found to contain plasticisers, Di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP) and di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) respectively. CFS advises the public to stop consuming the affected products and has instructed the trade to stop selling them. Please refer to the CFS Press Release for details on both affected products.

Some supermarket chains post recall notices on their web sites for the convenience of customers. To see whether a recalled food was carried by your favorite supermarket, follow the live link to the supermarket’s recall web site.

*The Kroger umbrella encompasses numerous supermarket, marketplace and convenience store chains, listed on the Kroger corporate home page.
**Includes Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, Dominick’s, Genuardi’s, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Carrs and Pak N’ Save.

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Posted in allergy, Clostridium, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, recall roundup, Salmonella | Tags: Food, Health

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