The CDC issued an update of the Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak linked to Foster Farms chicken. To date, the CDC has confirmed a 416 cases of Salmonella infection (salmonellosis) connected to the outbreak, which involves 7 genetically different strains of Salmonella Heidelberg. People in 23 states have been sickened, but 74% of them are from California: Alaska (1), Arkansas (1), Arizona (18), California (310), Colorado (9), Connecticut (1), Delaware (1), Florida (4), Idaho (4), Illinois (1), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (1), Michigan (3), Missouri (5), North Carolina (1), Nevada (10), New Mexico (2), Oregon (10), Puerto Rico (1), Texas (10), Utah (2), Virginia (3), Washington (16), and Wisconsin (1).
Illness onset dates range from March 1, 2013 to December 1, 2013.
“This outbreak is probably not over,” said attorney Fred Pritzker, who represents Salmonella victims and recently won $45,000,000.00 for clients injured by another product. “The problem with contaminated chicken is that it is often frozen, and Salmonella bacteria are not killed in the freezer. It may be months before the final numbers are in for this outbreak.”
Ill persons range in age from less than 1 year to 93 years, with a median age of 19 years. Among 340 persons with available information, 134 (39%) reported being hospitalized, some of them with severe illness. The primary problem is that some of the Salmonella strains are antibiotic resistant.
“Many of these Salmonella infections are quickly becoming septic, which means the infection is in the blood. When this happens, the entire body is at risk and organs can fail,” said Salmonella lawyer Pritzker.
Thirteen percent of ill persons have developed blood infections as a result of their illness, according to the CDC. Typically, about 5% of people with Salmonella infections develop blood infections.
Foster Farms Chicken Salmonella Strains Multidrug Resistant
Over half of the Salmonella Heidelberg isolates collected from victims of this outbreak are resistant to one or more antibiotics. Of these, 7 were multidrug resistant, according to the CDC’s NARMS laboratory. The CDC continues to conduct antimicrobial susceptibility testing on Salmonella isolates collected from recently reported ill persons infected with all seven of the outbreak strains.
To date, isolates collected from ill persons were resistant to combinations of the following antibiotics: ampicillin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, kanamycin, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline. Antibiotic resistance may increase the risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected individuals.
This outbreak was preventable, and more needs to be done to prevent a similar outbreak from occurring:
- Victims of this outbreak should be very well compensated for suffering harm from Foster Farms raw chicken (click here now for a free case review with Fred and his Bad Bug Team);
- The practice of feeding antibiotics to chickens needs to end now;
- Chicken processors need to test for Salmonella and for antibiotic resistance;
- When chicken tests positive for antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, it should be recalled immediately (this is not the law at this time); and
- If companies knowingly sell chicken tainted with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, executives of the company should face criminal charges.
