Regulators defend actions in recall

WASHINGTON – The first sickness was in March and the first signs of a salmonella outbreak appeared in May. Two months later, investigators linked the outbreak to ground turkey and a Cargill meat processing plant in Arkansas.

On Wednesday, almost five months after the first illness, the Agriculture Department asked Minnesota-based Cargill to recall 36 million pounds of ground turkey, saying the meat was linked to a death in California and at least 77 illnesses.

Tracking down the source of an illness is a difficult, complicated business, and federal officials defended the months-long process Thursday by saying they wanted to be absolutely sure before they asked Cargill to initiate the third-largest meat recall in history.

“There was an aggressive and thorough investigation that came together over time to paint one picture of this outbreak,” said Dr. Christopher Braden, an epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which investigated the outbreak with the Agriculture Department.

Investigations are often delayed because victims can’t remember what they ate or aren’t cooperative, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. But DeWaal said she believes the government should have told the company – and the public – about the possible outbreak much sooner.

“Clearly this kind of delay in an outbreak situation is one that puts the public health at risk,” DeWaal said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a longtime advocate for stronger food safety laws, sent Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and CDC Director Thomas Frieden a letter Thursday questioning why it took so long to announce the recall.

“It is simply unacceptable that after more than four months of illnesses and more than 10 weeks of investigation by both the CDC and the USDA we have so few answers to the obvious questions surrounding this outbreak,” DeLauro wrote.

Braden and David Goldman of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said at a briefing Thursday that authorities weren’t sure about the source of the outbreak until July, when they identified it through shopper’s card information from victims who had purchased the Cargill turkey, and a leftover sample of turkey from a victim’s home. Previous evidence from the investigation had pointed not just to Cargill, but other companies as well, they said.

Less conclusive evidence had pointed toward the Cargill plant in Springdale, Ark., much earlier, however. Samples of Cargill ground turkey purchased at four retail locations as part of routine testing between March 7 and June 27 showed contamination with the same strain of salmonella, though those samples were not specifically linked to the illnesses. Routine salmonella testing in 2010 also showed the pathogen at the plant.

Part of the difficulty for investigators is that USDA rules make it harder to investigate and recall salmonella-tainted poultry. Because salmonella is so common in poultry, it is not illegal for meat to be tainted with the pathogen. General guidance to consumers is to cook ground turkey to 165 degrees and to handle it properly before it is cooked. If it is cooked and handled properly, it is safe.

Seventy seven illnesses in the outbreak – an increase of one from the 76 illnesses reported earlier in the week – have been reported in 26 states coast to coast. A chart on the CDC’s website shows cases have occurred every month since early March, with spikes in May and early June. The latest reported cases were in July, although the CDC said some recent cases