Dr. Doug Powell, creator of the excellent food safety platform Barfblog, acknowledged our leadership in a recent post: “Minnesota lawyer Fred Pritzker was the first to publicly identify the potential outbreak linked to blade-tenderized steaks a week ago.”

The problem is that the official recall notice issued by USDA-FSIS on Christmas Eve is essentially useless since it fails to identify the restaurants at which the adulterated steak was served. Without that crucial information, the millions of consumers who eat steak at U.S. restaurants are left with no practical information about whether they were exposed to adulterated beef.

Our firm has been investigating this outbreak for several weeks and we are aware of at least one nationally advertised restaurant chain that is involved. But it is not possible to know the specific locations or all the restaurants involved in the outbreak without the customary listing provided in outbreaks by public health officials.

This decision smacks of regulators protecting the “good name” of national restaurant chains at the expense of consumer rights. Therefore, our law firm calls upon USDA-FSIS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which has remained silent on this outbreak) to promptly inform the American public of all the names of all the restaurants at which this recalled beef was served.

Restaurants are liable for E. coli infections caused by the food they serve. In this case, the restaurants associated with the illnesses are liable along with the steak processor for the harm suffered by those sickened.

If you have information about this outbreak or question whether the E. coli illness of a loved one may be linked, call Pritzker Olsen at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete our online contact and information form on the side of this web page.

That’s because an unknown quantity of the more than half-million pounds of  beef products recalled by Fairbank Farms on October 31 is still lurking in freezers of consumers. Therefore, the investigation into this outbreak by the CDC and several state health departments is continuing and CDC has issued advice to consumers.

So far there has been a cluster of 26 people from eight states infected with the outbreak strains of  E. coli O157:H7. One of the victims is a 5-year-old boy from Auburn, Maine, who was hospitalized for three weeks with E. coli HUS after eating ground beef tainted with E. coli O157:H7. His illness has been affirmatively matched to the outbreak. This young victim is represented by our national food safety firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys.

In my opinion, the needless suffering of all the people sickened so far in this outbreak only serves to underscore the need for more stringent testing in the meat industry. We can only hope that all consumers who purchased the contaminated ground beef produced by Fairbank Farms and sold through various retailers recognize the danger before they, too, suffer the consequences of lax testing and oversight.

The outbreak is centered in the Northeast, including the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and New York. The CDC is urging consumers to check their refrigerators and freezers for beef products produced by this firm and purchased on or after September 15, 2009. The meat has establishment number EST 492 stamped in the USDA mark of inspection, with product date codes of 091409, 091509 and 091609.

According to the most recent CDC snapshot of the outbreak — taken on November 20 — the latest reported illness began November 6. Here is the CDC’s chart of when the illnesses began. But, remember, the time from the beginning of the patient’s illness to the confirmation that he or she was part of an outbreak is typically about 2-3 weeks. Case counts in the midst of an outbreak investigation must be interpreted within this context.

But here it is on Halloween and in the past three weeks or so there have been four separate recalls of ground beef and other beef products due to possible adulteration from E. coli O157:H7.  The last two recalls have been associated with outbreaks of E. coli illness in New England — specifically Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The spate of problems with ground beef is further proof that the U.S. isn’t making progress in keeping this pathogen out of our food. In fact, there has been a couple of years of backsliding.

The biggest of the four ground beef E. coli recalls in October was announced early this morning by the USDA and Ashville, New York,-based Fairbanks Farms. A whopping total of 545,699 pounds of fresh ground beef produced by Fairbanks in mid-September was recalled after the product was associated with a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 infections in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine.

The ground beef products were sold through meat cases at Trader Joe’s, Shaw’s, Lancaster and Wild Harvest, BJ’s, Ford Brothers and Giant under individual store labels. Consumers should look for USDA establishment number EST 492 inside the USDA mark of inspection, regardless of where it was sold. The recalled ground beef has sell-by dates ranging from Sept. 19-28 and a few products have sell-by dates in early October. Click here and scroll down to see the complete recall list.

Earlier in the week, Crocetti’s Oakdale Packing Co. doing business as South Shore Meats Inc. recalled 1,039 pounds of ground beef patties and bulk ground beef tied to an outbreak of E. coli among Rhode Island Lincoln Middle School sixth graders. The students were served a hamburger meal at Camp Bournedale, a nature camp in Plymouth, Massacusetts. More than 20 kids and chaperones were injured in that outbreak, including at least two who were hospitalized.

Prior to the Lincoln Middle School E. coli outbreak, San Diego Meat Co. in California recalled 925 pounds of ground beef patties and bulk ground beef sold to restaurants. Around the same time, Culebra Meat Market of Texas recalled 4,000 pounds of carne asada, stew meat and ground beef that had been sold to regional restaurants after tests detected E. coli O157:H7 in samples.

Federal lawmakers who are once again beating the drum for food safety won’t have to look back much further than the month of October to know that the existing ban against E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef is not enough to prevent life-threatening food poisoning. The House already has passed a reform bill this year and the Senate is currently in the process of formulating its own bill. A frightful month of October should help the cause.

To contact national food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker, call him at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or email him at fhp@pritzkerlaw.com. Mr. Pritzker currently represents E. coli HUS victims and continues to be involved on the side of consumers in practically every major E. coli outbreak in the U.S.

See full recall notice.