CDC expands E. coli warning for romaine lettuce
List now includes whole heads, hearts and chopped products
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Friday expanded its warning to consumers not to eat romaine lettuce grown in the Yuma area to include whole heads and hearts of romaine as well as chopped.
Citing food surveys given to patients in Alaska being treated for E. coli infections indicating they had consumed lettuce coming from hearts of romaine, the federal agency broadened the scope of the initial warning about the crops issued April 13.
“Do not buy or eat romaine lettuce at a grocery store or restaurant unless you can confirm it is not romaine lettuce from the Yuma, Arizona, growing region,” the updated notice reads.
It continues, “Unless the source of the product is known, consumers anywhere in the United States who have any store-bought romaine lettuce at home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick. This includes whole heads and hearts of romaine, chopped romaine, and salads and salad mixes containing romaine lettuce,” with the last sentence written in boldface.
The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still have not identified any “common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand” as the source of the cluster of E. coli O157:H7 infections. Because of that, it hasn’t issued any product recalls, but some companies have announced voluntary recalls of salad mixes.
Cases have been reported in 16 states that have made 53 people sick. Five of those people have developed a form of kidney failure, but no one has died, according to the CDC.
The Arizona Department of Health Services issued a similar warning Friday and also announced that two more cases in the state have
been identified, bringing the total to five. Four of the patients are in Maricopa County and the other in Pinal.
ADHS spokesman Wes Parrell said state laboratories have confirmed the two new cases are part of the same outbreak and have sent the information to the CDC, which updates the national tally periodically.
The news has come just as Yuma County’s $2 billion agriculture industry has wrapped up its peak winter season, and though the CDC is still cautioning consumers, restaurants and retailers to check on the origin of any romaine lettuce they purchase now, none has been shipped from here since just after the initial recall.
“They say the shelf life of the product is 17 days, so, as of last weekend, that was the last stuff that had gone out. We’re still within 17 days within the pipeline and around, things like that,” said Teressa Lopez, program manager of the Arizona Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement operated under the state Department of Agriculture.
Anything just coming into the market now is most likely from the Salinas, Calif. area, where much of Yuma County’s winter vegetable operations relocate, including farmers, workers, processors and shippers. Scott Horsfall of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement said initial orders out of that part of the country don’t seem to be affected too much at this point.
“The CDC was pretty specific about the product they were concerned about, and there was a lot of effort last weekend to address that issue and pull stuff off the market,” he said. Additional media coverage of the widened advisory on Yuma romaine lettuce could make things more difficult for California product on the market, he said.
Yuma County’s $2 billion agriculture sector, just coming off of its high season, is still in the dark and anxious to find out what might have happened so any deficiencies can be corrected, said Paul Muthart, general manager for Pasquinelli Produce.
He emphasized that Pasquinelli is strictly a produce grower, and all processing is handled by other companies, but there are safeguards against contamination throughout the supply chain. Social media comments blaming local growers for the outbreak and claiming they don’t care about food safety has been hurtful, he said.
“All kinds of efforts are being made. People make careers out of this,” he said, with most companies he can think of having at least one professional on staff to focus on food safety.
As the outbreak continues to unfold, he said, “the bottom line is, it’s really too bad anybody has gotten sick from eating lettuce, which is presumably a safe, healthy thing to consume.”