Peanut Butter Caused Salmonella Outbreak

Hundreds Were Sickened In Dozens Of States; CDC Says Disease May Have Contributed To 3 Deaths

(AP)  The salmonella bacteria that has sickened more than 400 people in 43 states has been conclusively linked to peanut butter, Minnesota health officials announced Monday. Federal officials said the outbreak may have contributed to three deaths.

State health and agriculture officials said last week they had found salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound package of King Nut peanut butter at a nursing facility in Minnesota. Officials tested the bacteria over the weekend and found a genetic match with the bacterial strain that has led to 30 illnesses in Minnesota and others across the country.

"The commonality among all of our patients was that they ate peanut butter," said Doug Schultz, a spokesman with the Minnesota Department of Health. While the brand of peanut butter couldn't be confirmed in every case, the majority of patients consumed the same brand, he said Monday.

"This certainly is one pretty definitive piece of evidence in this case," Heidi Kassenborg of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture said Monday.

The peanut butter was distributed only through food service providers and was not sold directly to consumers. Officials are concerned the peanut butter is still being used, and Kassenborg urged institutions to toss it out.

A woman in her 70s at a northern Minnesota nursing home died after contracting salmonella, although epidemiologist Stephanie Meyer of the state Health Department said it wasn't clear whether the illness or underlying health problems caused the death. The woman was not at the facility where the bacteria was initially found.

The Centers for Disease Control, in a release later Monday, said the salmonella poisonings may have contributed to three deaths. The CDC didn't detail the deaths or where they occurred, and spokesman Dave Daigle said the agency would have no other details Monday.

Minnesota officials took the lead because foodborne investigations typically start at the state level. Minnesota officials were coordinating their investigation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other states.

King Nut Companies of Solon, Ohio, on Sunday asked its customers to stop using peanut butter under its King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands with a lot code that begins with the numeral "8." Company president and chief executive Martin Kanan said Monday that Minnesota's findings validated that decision.

"We did not want to wait around for the results," he said.

The peanut butter King Nut distributed was manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America, a Virginia company. In an e-mail earlier Monday, President Stewart Parnell said the company was working with federal authorities.

The peanut butter was distributed to establishments such as care facilities, hospitals, schools, universities and restaurants. King Nut says it was not distributed for retail sale to consumers.

The CDC on Monday raised the number of confirmed cases to 410, from 399 as of Friday, and Mississippi became the 43rd state to report a case. All the illnesses began between Sept. 15 and Jan. 7, but most of the people became sick after Oct. 1.

Kanan held out the possibility that the contamination came from another source, since the salmonella was found in an open container.

"That means there's a possibility of cross-contamination, somebody could have been cutting a piece of chicken and then stuck the knife into the peanut butter for a peanut butter sandwich," he said. "There have been no tests that have come back positive on a closed container."

The Minnesota lab took 13 samples from the container, and four of the samples, taken from different parts of the container, tested positive for salmonella. Doug Schultz, a Minnesota Health Department spokesman, said if the sample was contaminated from another source, lab tests would be expected to show positive results from near the top of the container only.

But Schultz said lab workers also aim to test unopened containers of the peanut butter and are trying to get such samples from the distributor.

The peanut butter contamination comes almost two years after ConAgra recalled its Peter Pan brand peanut butter, which was eventually linked to at least 625 salmonella cases in 47 states.

CDC officials say the bacteria in the current outbreak has been genetically fingerprinted as the Typhimurium type, which is among the most common sources of salmonella food poisoning.

[winnerindia]

What kind of fool would use a knife to cut raw chicken and then - without washing the same knife - or using ANOTHER KNIFE - use it to scoop out peanut butter - - or any other thing ??

Is this NEWS that raw chicken is disease-riddled and precautions must be taken when handling it ??

What kind of simpleton HillBillys are we talking about here ??
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Posted by ChicagoRailA at 07:38 PM : Jan 13, 2009
+ report abuse


Believe me, there are no limits to human foolishness and/or intelligence. There are many guys out there who can do even worse.

[jamster31]

Never eat at a restuarant called Sam N'' Ellas.

[jd2408]

Does anyone know where this peanut butter was manufactured. The article only says it was manufactured by a Virginia Co. Was it manufactured in VA ? Does anyone happen to know ?

[tincup356]

Since corporate America insists on charging us the highest prices possible after selling us foods that are laced with FDA approved poisons.....maybe we should quit buying products they have tainted and let them scream when they go broke.....our crooked congress will just bail them out like they are doing with everyone else that has paid lobby dollars.

[idnnsg]

"The far greater danger (and more difficult to detect) in Peanut Butter is aflatoxin. Aflatoxin infests a certain fraction of the peanut crop and is 100% ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS CANCER CAUSERS IN THE WORLD!!! ...

Aflatoxin won''t make you sick immediately... It''ll just kill you in 10 years (with a 100% probability of success). " - ubrew12

You really need to check your facts before posting such drivel. If the aflatoxin in pb is 100% guaranteed to kill you in 10 years, I would have died from it 50 years ago!

Aflatoxins are naturally occurring toxins that are metabolic byproducts of the fungi Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus which grow on many food crops, including corn, cottonseed, peanuts, pistachio nuts, pecans, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and milk. If it was as bad as you claim, we''d ALL be dead already.

[robert7562]

My original post
correction for "yesterday" = Sunday

Just yesterday the report said that the CDC was certain that this peanut butter contamination was NOT the cause of the outbreak because that which was found in said peanut butter was a different strain than that which caused the illnesses and deaths. Now, today, all of a sudden, almost miraculausly, this peanut butter has been found to be the culpret. No suprise that there is now no trace of yesterdays article.
Posted by robert7562 at 03:15 AM : Jan 13, 2009

This is getting more and more like Communism every day.

Posted by repo_man_08 sup repo

More like big brother, or maybe they think that they are "all powerful" and beleive they can pull some sort of jedi mind trick. (this is not the contaminated food you are looking for) More likely to cover someones exposed azz.

Seriously, don''t take "their" word for it. I wish I had a good suggestion for everyone to avoid any more illness, just be aware that just because you didn''t eat any peanut butter, doesn''t mean you can''t be affected.
Fly Safe.

[mswolfestock]

Isn''t this the same bunch of losers who said the formaldehyde in the FEMA trailers wasn''t harmful?

[blog_fever2]

I was just about to enjoy a sandwhich.... good looking out cbsnews....

[Mccarthyaw]

This happens so often you wonder why people still buy peanut butter?


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Posted by baileycc at 10:16 AM : Jan 13, 2009

It is delicious. Plus the odds are in my favor.

This happens so often you wonder why people still buy peanut butter?

[whitemale08]

Peter Pan is not ''peanut butter''

Read the back of the label.

The laber reads a laundry list of chemicals, preservatives, and synthetic material used in plastics.

Real peanut butter labels reads only 1 ingredient: ''peanuts''.

If the food you consume contains anything besides natural ingredients then it''s not food at all but plastic synthetics.

Giant food corporations traded on Wall Street/City of London hire scientists/eugenisists to study different ways to make industrial waste like synthetic plastic edible.

If giant food corporations can make plastic you can eat then their profit margins go up as ''real food'' is readily more expensive and restricted by locations and seasons.

[peace_fresa]

ugh.
i hate peanut butter
anyways :)

[cdcworthless]

Could more money be going to a more useless agency? They botch whatever they take on and they always err on the side of not warning us of potential danger when it really exists because they were unsure. Years of trying to get us to get flu shots then telling us there is no vaccine. Between the CDC, EPA and FDA, we get plastic in our food (The rise in kidney stones in our kids is just a coincidinkey haha), toxin in our air and water and contaminated peanut butter way after they could have prevented illness but were scared by the food companies.

[cdcworthless]

Could more money be going to a more useless agency? They botch whatever they take on and they always err on the side of not warning us of potential danger when it really exists because they were unsure. Years of trying to get us to get flu shots then telling us there is no vaccine. Between the CDC, EPA and FDC, we get plastic in our food (The rise in kidney stones in our kids is just a coincidinkey haha), toxin in our air and water and contaminated peanut butter way after they could have prevented illness but were scared by the food companies.

[httpwwwnews]

My son, his wife, and their toddler got terribly sick on Jan. 3rd. I thought they maybe had a very violent stomach flu, but they had a fever too. They were totally debilitated within a short time. All three of them are just beginning to feel better. The thing is, the four of us had went to a major amusement park that starts with a "D" on the day before. I didn''t eat the same things as they all did, they all shared food, I did share my drink with my grandson, and I didn''t get sick. That makes me doubt that it was a virus. None of us ate peanut butter. I think there may be another culpert in this outbreak than just peanut butter.

[msay3]

Last year it was Peter Pan, so it isn''t just off-brands that are affected...

[robert7562]

Just yesterday the report said that the CDC was certain that this peanut butter contamination was NOT the cause of the outbreak because that which was found in said peanut butter was a different strain than that which caused the illnesses and deaths. Now, today, all of a sudden, almost miraculausly, this peanut butter has been found to be the culpret. No suprise that there is now no trace of yesterdays article. Someone was either criminally wrong, or flat out lying in 1 of these 2 statements from the CDC. Can YOU trust this? I certainly have problems with it.

[ubrew12]

The far greater danger (and more difficult to detect) in Peanut Butter is aflatoxin. Aflatoxin infests a certain fraction of the peanut crop and is 100% ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS CANCER CAUSERS IN THE WORLD!!!

If they aren''t inspecting peanut butter sufficiently enough to catch Salmonella...

you can BET they aren''t catching Aflatoxin. Aflatoxin won''t make you sick immediately...

It''ll just kill you in 10 years (with a 100% probability of success).

Honestly, if the FDA isn''t catching Salmonella in the peanut crop, you can bet they aren''t catching Aflatoxin. They don''t really have to worry, though, since when people start dropping dead in 10 years it''ll be difficult to trace to a bad batch of peanut butter.

[samrt-2009]

Another tragedy that did not need to happen. Ronald Reagan began the assault on good government with his mantra, "Gummint is the problem, not the solution," a battle cry taken up by subsequent Republican administrations. What the Republicans have actually proved is that it is they, not "gummint" that is the problem.

[onlythereal-]

These things are becoming an every day occurrence, if its not one food its something else. They just want to half-azz process it and get it on the market to make a dollar. They dont seem to take pride in their products anymore or watch their employees. While other people or eating their off-brands, they are eating Jiff or Skippy. Its a lot safer that way for their kids.