Salmonella Warning:FEMA Food Kits May Contain Tainted Peanut Butter
Salmonella Warning:FEMA Food Kits May Contain Tainted Peanut Butter. The Food kits recently distributed as part of a disaster relief effort in Kentucky and Arkansas may contain peanut butter contaminated with salmonella linked to a nationwide outbreak, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday.
The FDA says a Georgia plant that produced peanut butter is linked to an outbreak of salmonella poisoning.
“Commercial meals kits manufactured by Red Cloud Food Services Inc., under the Standing Rock label, have been provided to disaster survivors in impacted communities, and these kits may contain peanut butter which is part of the precautionary national recall underway in accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” FEMA said in a written statement.
Though the kits do not all contain the same main course, they do contain packets of peanut butter, the agency said.
“People who have received commercial meal kits are asked to inspect the kits in their possession and immediately dispose of any peanut butter packets,” it said.
The meals were sent in the wake of President Barack Obama’s federal disaster declarations for Kentucky and Arkansas after they were hammered last week with rain, ice and snow.
Last month, the Food and Drug Administration linked a nationwide outbreak of salmonella poisoning related to peanut butter. Those products have sickened close to 600 people and may be responsible for eight deaths and the count is still continuing to rise, despite recalls of others to peanut butter, peanut paste and peanuts processed and produced by the Peanut Corporation of America, at its plant in Blakely, Georgia.
FDA said PCA could have distributed contaminated product to more than 100 companies for use as an ingredient in hundreds of products, including cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream. FDA and Federal authorities have initiated a criminal investigation into the company.
In a written statement, PCA said Wednesday that federal and state regulators took part last year in “regular visits and inspections of the Blakely facility.”
“Independent audit and food safety firms also conducted customary unannounced inspections of the Blakely facility in 2008,” it said. “One gave the plant an overall ’superior’ rating, and the other rated the plant as ‘Meet or Exceeds audit expectations (Acceptable-Excellent)’ ratings. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the ongoing investigations, we will not be able to comment further about the facts related to this matter at this time.”
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Salmonella Warning:FEMA Food Kits May Contain Tainted Peanut Butter,” go to CNN News.
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I think when we eat we should all pray that we don’t get ill from our food. We have to believe that things will go well for us whatever food we pick to eat and that is a fact.
It just seems that the plants that manufacture our food are not inspected enough or we trust to much that things will be inspected as they should be and it just not happening of which is sad and scarey and that is a fact.