Salmonella in the Southwest: Another Ground Beef Recall

I warned on December 13th that another food recall was brewing. At that time, there were a few news items reporting about Salmonella illnesses in Arizona, California, Idaho and Nevada. But the epidemiologists at CDC and the state health agencies hadn't been able to put their collective fingers on the source of the outbreak. Now the news is out.

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service has just issued a public health alert. The outbreak of illnesses caused by a multi-drug resistant Salmonella Newport has been linked to ground beef products that were ground and sold in Safeway supermarkets between September 19th and November 5th. Anyone who purchased fresh ground beef from Safeway stores in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and New Mexico between these dates should discard or destroy it.

To date, 38 cases of salmonellosis have been tied to this meat.