Lettuce Tied to Most Recent E. coli Cases
An outbreak of E. coli that has sickened people in several states has been pinpointed to shredded and chopped iceberg lettuce for restaurant and foodservice distribution, according to Michigan public health authorities.
The lettuce, distributed nationally by Detroit-based Aunt Mid's Produce Co., is being linked to 26 cases in Michigan, Illinois, New York, Ohio and Oregon, according to an Associated Press report.
The Michigan Department of Community Health issued an alert late last week tying recent E. coli illnesses to industrial-size bags of iceberg lettuce sold to restaurants and institutions. The health agency said that bagged lettuce in grocery stores is not believed to be associated with the outbreak.
The Michigan finding came the same day that a government report was released outlining the Food and Drug Administration's food safety enforcement problems.
The report by Government Accountability Office indicated the FDA’s food safety efforts suffer from infrequent inspections and poor enforcement at fresh produce processing plants.
Fresh produce in the united States would be safer if farmers were required to use stricter standards for growing leafy greens as those used by California growers, according to administration officials.
To enact preventative controls over how the country’s produce is grown and processed would require congressional approval, according to the FDA.
The 59-page GAO report, cited previously unpublished FDA figures showing that 14 people died and 10,253 were sickened in 96 fresh produce foodborne illness outbreaks between 1996 through 2006, according to the Associated Press report.
Produce-processing facility inspections by the FDA are rare, according to the GAO report, and when problems are discovered the agency primarily relies on the industry to take self-correcting measures. Often, the industry corrections are conducted without oversight or follow-up by the FDA, according to the report.
The FDA did not adequately implement food safety measures over the fast-growing bagged and fresh-cut produce market because it was diverted at the time by a focus on counterterrorism concerns over the country’s food supply, according to the GAO.
The report also said that a mere 1 percent of produce imported into the U.S. is inspected, and “the practice of mixing produce from several sources makes it hard to trace contamination,” according to the Associated Press report.