This month’s sprout-related outbreak of Salmonella in Northern California has prompted the attorneys of Seattle law firm, Marler Clark, to call on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require warnings on packaging of all raw sprouts. “According the FDA’s own 1999 advisory, ‘Recommendations on Sprouted Seeds,’ sprouts have been increasingly implicated in foodborne outbreaks. The time has come to label sprouts as potentially hazardous,” said William Marler, the firm’s managing partner. He suggests this labeling mirror the requirements now found on unpasteurized juices:
WARNING: This product may contain harmful bacteria that can cause serious illness in children, the elderly, and persons with weakened immune systems.
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According to the California Department of Health Services (DHS), 45 individuals in Sacramento, Yolo, and Placer Counties have been infected with Salmonella Enteritidis since the outbreak began in mid-April 2000. The DHS has linked this outbreak to the consumption of raw mung bean sprouts grown by Pacific Coast Sprout Farms, a sprout manufacturer based in Sacramento.
There are approximately 2,000 serotypes of Salmonella that can cause sickness in humans. A common myth is that you can only get Salmonella from raw eggs, but various Salmonella species have been found in foods such as raw meats, poultry, swine, milk and dairy products, fish, frog legs, yeast, coconut, peanut butter, chocolate, and environmental sources such as water, insects, and kitchen surfaces. The reality is Salmonella is being reported in new mediums that were once thought harmless, such as the recent infections linked to a toasted oat cereal, orange juice and sprouts.
There has been a dramatic rise in the incidence of salmonellosis all over the world, including the United States. Every year, approximately 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported in the United States. Because many milder cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infections is sometimes estimated to be twenty or more times greater. It is estimated that approximately 1,000 persons in the United States die each year with acute salmonellosis.
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