Tainted Celery Linked to Four Deaths: What Does FDA Say to Do?
(CBS/AP) Can celery kill? It can it's tainted with dangerous listeria bacteria, and that's why the FDA is considering expanding a recall of produce processed at a shuttered Texas processing plant.
Texas health officials shut the plant in San Antonio after tainted celery processed there sickened at least six people this year, four of whom died. The officials ordered a recall of all produce that had passed through the SanGar Produce & Processing Co. plant since January.
A decision on whether to expand the recall would be made once the FDA learns more, the FDA's Office of Food Safety deputy director, Don Kraemer, said Thursday.
To minimize the risk of listerosis, the agency recommends that customers throw out or return all SanGar products.
The Texas Department of State Health Services traced six of 10 known cases of listeriosis in the state during an eight-month period to celery processed at the plant. The agency is investigating the origins of the other four cases, which include one death.
Health inspectors found problems with sanitation at the plant, including a condensation leak over a food production area. The health department is trying to determine who the now-recalled produce was sold to and whether it was used in other products.
Health officials are trying to determine how much potentially tainted produce passed through the plant since January and whether it could have ended up in other products.
Health officials said the produce was sold to restaurants, schools and hospitals, but that they don't believe it was sold in grocery stores.
The 10 people who contracted listeriosis were in Bexar, Travis and Hidalgo counties, in central and southern parts of the state. The agency has no information so far that the recalled produce - which also includes lettuce, pineapple and honeydew - was distributed outside of Texas.
All 10 people who contracted the disease in Texas already had serious underlying health problems, the health department said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 500 people die of listeriosis each year in the U.S., and about 2,500 people become seriously ill.
Those with weaker immune systems - including pregnant women, young children, the elderly and those battling serious illness - are most at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying because of listeriosis, the CDC says. Healthy adults and children occasionally are infected with the disease but rarely become seriously ill.
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