Ice cream bug woe heats up

Ice cream lovers could face a rocky road this summer, according to a report by the federal food safety agency, and Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to ensure the problem gets licked.

In a yearlong investigation, federal food inspectors found potentially deadly listeria and salmonella bacteria at a handful of ice-cream makers, leading to the shutdown of one manufacturer linked to three listeriosis cases in Florida. The Food and Drug Administration released its report on the investigation Wednesday.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that he’s pushing to keep in the federal budget a proposed funding increase to fight food-borne illnesses.

“When it’s even in ice cream, not just meats and vegetables but ice cream, you know this is serious and spreading,” said Schumer. “We have to stop it, and we’ll do everything we can to do that.”

Efforts would include a $16 million increase to the FDA’s inspections budget, and another $16 million bump that would help the FDA adopt new technologies to detect pathogens in food. One such technology is Whole Genome Sequencing, which involves DNA sequencing of bacteria to help researchers find pathogen matches that allow them to determine what is making people sick and define the scope of an outbreak.

The FDA’s 2016-2017 investigation involved inspections of 89 ice cream manufacturing facilities in 32 states. It followed 16 recalls of ice cream products in the prior three years due to contamination, and an outbreak of listeriosis linked to an ice cream maker in Florida.

In April 2015, Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries voluntarily recalled all its products after its ice cream was linked to 10 cases of listeriosis in four states, including three fatal cases in Kansas.

Last October, the FDA suspended the food facility registration of Florida-based Working Cow Homemade Ice Cream because products made at that factory might have been contaminated with listeria. Working Cow, which was linked to three Florida listeriosis cases, stopped making ice cream and became a distributor.

Nationally, instances of food-borne illnesses hit a 10year high last year, and nobody’s quite sure why, Schumer said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that salmonella causes about 1.2 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths in the U.S. every year. E. coli contributes to 265,000 illnesses, 3,600 hospitalizations and 30 deaths each year, according to the CDC, and an estimated 1,600 people are sickened by listeria each year and about 260 die.