Minnesota Woman Represented by Pritzker Olsen in Egg Lawsuit
The multi-state Salmonella egg outbreak traced by state and federal health authorities to two Iowa egg farms has resulted in more than 1,400 illnesses, including at least 14 confirmed Salmonella Enteritidis cases in Minnesota. Our law firm has been in touch with victims and has filed an egg lawsuit on behalf of a Minnesota couple from Mantorville. We are continuing to accept additional cases at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free).
Here’s a copy of the press release published today by BusinessWire:
MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–PritzkerOlsen, P.A., the national food safety law firm, has filed suit on behalf of a woman from Mantorville, Minnesota, who is a confirmed victim of the multi-state Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak linked to shell eggs.
According to the lawsuit, filed in Beltrami County, the woman ate at Mi Rancho restaurant in Bemidji, Minnesota, on May 7, 2010, and started getting ill a short time later. The Minnesota Department of Health determined that she and at least six other patrons of the restaurant were sickened by the same identical strain of Salmonella Enteritidis.
Shell eggs were identified as the likely source of the Mi Rancho outbreak and were traced back by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to Hillandale Farms of New Hampton, Iowa. Eggs from Hillandale Farms were then included in an expanded egg recall of more than half a billion eggs that started with Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa.
Restaurant clusters like the one in Bemidji aided state and federal health investigators in framing the egg outbreak. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 1,470 reported illnesses are likely to be associated with this outbreak, making it the largest Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak reported since CDC started outbreak surveillance in the early 1970s.
“Our client’s severe illness could have been prevented at several levels, but those with the ability to protect her from Salmonella poisoning failed to do so,” stated Attorney Fred Pritzker, lead attorney for the firm’s egg recall cases. “Our client and the hundreds of others sickened in this outbreak deserved better.”
Pritzker Olsen is in contact with other victims and is accepting cases for additional egg lawsuits against Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg.
PritzkerOlsen, P.A., headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, represents individuals and families nationwide in cases involving foodborne illness. The firm is involved in virtually every major foodborne illness outbreak and has successfully obtained some of the largest verdicts and settlements in foodborne illness cases. Attorney Fred Pritzker can be reached at 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE). More information on the egg recall can be found on the firm’s blog, foodpoisoning.pritzkerlaw.com.
The High Cost of E. coli and Salmonella Food Poisoning
Americans pay about $3.13 billion a year in costs incurred each year by Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 alone, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP).
The center is reporting figures gathered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS). As seen in the chart below, the ERS used estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to come up with cost estimates for both E. coli and Salmonella cases annually. The numbers for Salmonella costs are based on the CDC’s estimate of almost 1.4 million Salmonella cases each year, which includes 415 deaths. The average cost per case is an estimated $1,896.
| Pathogen | CDC estimate of annual number of cases | ERS cost estimate (2009 dollars) |
|---|---|---|
 Campylobacter (foodborne sources) |
2,000,000 | |
| Salmonella (all sources) |
1,397,187 | $2,649,413,401 |
| Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157 (STEC O157) (all sources) |
73,480 | $478,381,766 |
| Non-O157 shiga toxin-producing E. coli (non-STEC O157) (all sources) |
31,229 | |
| Listeria (all sources) |
2,797 |
The CDC numbers of E coli O157 cases are significantly lower, at 73,480 cases a year with 61 deaths, however the per-case cost of $6,510 is much higher than Salmonella cases.
According to CIDRAP:
“The ERS has posted an online “Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator” that allows Web users to come up with their own estimates of the cost of foodborne illnesses for a state or region or for a given outbreak. The ERS’s estimates, which have been used in cost-benefit and impact analyses, include assumptions about disease incidence, outcome severity, and medical and productivity costs.”
Currently the only pathogens available in the calculator are Salmonella and E. coli O157, however, the ERS is planning on adding Listeria, Campylobacter, and other strains of E. coli (non-0157 shiga toxin-producing E. coli such as ecoli 0111 and E. coli 0145). The types of costs taken into consideration by the USDA’s ERS include:
- Medical costs
- Time missed from work due to illness
- Cost of premature death
However, they do NOT include costs such as:
- Pain and suffering
- Travel
- Child care
A similar report released in March by The Produce Safety Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University, estimated much higher numbers, with a total cost of $152 billion per year for all pathogens, $14.6 billion for Salmonella and $993 million for E. coli 0157.
School Lunch Risk Uncovered by USA Today
As a story this week in USA Today reminds us, the government has a “zero-tolerance” policy for the pathogens E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella in ground beef bound for schools via the national school lunch program. The program actually has a very good track record of keeping these pathogens away from our kids in school.
Why then — as the newspaper properly questions — did the program accept certain ground beef orders made by a supplier during a period this summer when the meat could have been contaminated with Salmonella?
It makes no sense and the government reply is feeble.
James Marsden, a professor of food safety and security at Kansas State University, is the voice of reason in this story. He said the decision put children at risk and there’s no question in my mind that it did.
The case revolves around the summer recall and ground beef Salmonella outbreak associated with the Fresno, California, plant of Beef Packers Inc., a subsidiary of food giant Cargill. The outbreak sickened at least 39 people in 11 states. Our firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, is representing one of the victims.
Here’s the gist of the USA Today story by reporters Blake Morrison, Peter Eisler and Anthony DeBarros:
Even as public health officials told residents to throw out recalled products from the Fresno plant, the federal government paid Beef Packers hundreds of thousands of dollars for almost 450,000 pounds of ground beef made from June 5 to June 23, the dates covered by the recall. Four orders were produced for the school lunch program during that period.
One tested positive for Salmonella Newport, the strain that prompted the recall and can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever and vomiting. That order — produced June 9 – was rejected by the government.
Because testing of samples from the three other orders of beef were Salmonella-free, the meat made for schools was not included in the recall, even though it was produced during the span of the recall.
Lawmakers and food safety experts told the paper that the three orders should have been rejected nonetheless. That’s because the tests that led the government to release the beef are inconsistent and often wrong, Marsden told the newspaper.
Government officials with the Agricultural Marketing Service, the arm of the USDA that runs the school lunch program, stood behind their decision. But the program’s administrator said the USDA “plans to initiate an independent review” of
its “testing procedures and process control requirements” next year.
Colorado Town’s Salmonella Outbreak Underscores Importance of Chlorinating Public Water Supplies
Outbreaks of Salmonella — whether from water or food — don’t get much bigger than the one that hit Alamosa, Colorado, last year between March and April.
According to a report by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, contaminated water in the town’s natural municipal water supply sickened up to 1,300 of the area’s 8,900 residents. There were 494 documented cases of illness, including 122 that were lab-confirmed. One person died.
The culprit? Health investigators can’t be 100 percent sure, but their conclusion is that Salmonella microbes from animal feces– possibly bird droppings — seeped into an underground concrete holding tank. The bacteria probably entered the tank through cracks and holes in the concrete, the report said.
The report indicates that Alamosa’s water supply was not chlorinated. Residents had obtained a waiver from the state back in 1974 that allowed no treatment of the water. The report suggests that chlorination would have prevented the outbreak, which resulted in a three-week ban on consumption of city water and the closure of some local businesses.
“This incident further underscores the long-accepted public health benefits associated with disinfecting drinking water,” Colorado water quality program manager Ron Falco told KDRO-TV. “Chlorine is a highly effective means of destroying bacteria such as Salmonella.”
Since the outbreak, Colorado health officials have withdrawn chlorination waivers from 72 municipalities in the state.
To see the full report on Alamosa’s Salmonella water outbreak, click here.
Salmonella Spinach Recall by Salinas Grower
A company from Salinas, California, has recalled more than 1,715 cartons of bunched spinach after routine random tests by the Michigan Department of Agriculture found Salmonella contamination.
The Salmonella spinach recall by Ippolito International LP mostly applies to Queen Victoria brand bunched spinach, but it also covers 200 cartons of bunched spinach under the Tubby brand that was distributed in California and New York. In all, the recall affects consumers in 10 additional states and three Canadian provinces — British Columbia, Ontario and Manitoba. The 10 states are Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota and New Jersey.
The company said in a press release distributed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that no illnesses have been reported in connection with the positive Salmonella test, which was obtained under the USDA’s Microbial Data Program. The potentially contaminated spinach was grown September 1-3 and Ippolito contacted known distributors of the spinach to tell them to destroy any unsold bunches.
This is certainly not the first time that fresh spinach has been associated with a recall based on findings of Salmonella or E. coli O157:H7. As a leafy green vegetable, spinach has come under special scrutiny along with lettuce and other vegetables prone to contamination in the field or processing facilities. The most notable event was the Dole baby spinach E. coli outbreak of 2006. More than 200 people were sickened, 31 were hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, and five of those people died.
Salmonella, too, has the potential to kill people who are young, old or immune-compromised. Healthy people who get sick from Salmonella may experience fever, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea. If the bacteria gets into a person’s blood stream, it can lead to greater problems, including arterial infections, endocarditis and arthritis.
One of the scary food poisoning lawsuit lessons learned in the 2006 spinach outbreak was that pathogens such as Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 can’t just rest on the surface of leafy green vegetables, but they can harbor within the plants themselves — making them resistant to washing.
For reasons of prevention, we repeat more information here about Ippolito’s recall: The 12 and 24-count spinach bunches were bound with a twist tie which says “Queen Victoria Spinach Produce of USA PLU 4090 UPC 33383 65200.”
The “Tubby” product was packed in cardboard cartons with “Tubby” printed on the side panel. The cartons were coded with date stickers. They read as follows: 10522441 5 205 (Harvested September 1, 2009); 105222451 5 205 (Harvested September 2, 2009; 10522461 5 205 (Harvested September 3, 2009).
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
