Most Consumers Don’t Know All the Facts on Salmonella Outbreak, Survey Shows

The nationwide outbreak of salmonella linked to contaminated peanuts has attracted major news headlines, but most consumers still don’t know which products are involved or other important details, a new survey finds.

About one in four of the 1,300 adults in the United States polled over the phone about the salmonella outbreak mistakenly thought national brands of jarred peanut butter are affected – health officials have said they are not – and were not worried about snack bars, ice cream, dry-roasted peanuts and other foods containing peanuts, which officials have said are associated with the outbreak, according to the survey.

That misunderstanding could put consumers at risk of eating foods they think are safe while avoiding major peanut butter brands and other foods that have been deemed safe.

However, a strong majority of those polled, about 93 percent, knew about the outbreak and the massive recall of nearly 2,000 food items. Of those contacted who knew about the outbreak, 70 percent knew that peanut butter crackers were part of the recall. Also, most people understood that the outbreak was linked to salmonella bacteria, which researchers said was an unusually high level of recognition for a public health scare.

The massive outbreak linked to a Peanut Corp. of America peanut-processing plant in Blakely, Ga. has been blamed for killing nine people, injuring more than 600 others, and causing one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history.

Only Half Knew Which Snack Bars Were Recalled

Only about half of those in the poll could name some brands of snack bars containing peanut paste and included in the food recall. About one in three knew that some candy and prepackaged meals were also involved, while just one in four people could identify types of ice cream that were at risk.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced that its website set up to post an up-do-date list of recalled products and news alerts on the outbreak had logged 20 million hits in just two weeks. However, the survey found that fewer than one in five people had gone to the agency’s online list of recalled foods.

Most Aren’t Worried

Most people said they were not worried about the salmonella outbreak. About 31 percent contacted friends or relatives to make sure they knew about the recall and about 15 percent said they had stopped eating any foods containing peanuts, according to the survey. However, about 69 percent did not contact loved ones about the recall and 45 percent continued to eat all peanut-containing foods.

The survey also found that just one in three respondents were very worried or somewhat worried about getting food poisoning, compared to 38 percent who said they had the same concerns in another pool conducted in June 2008, officials said.

Little Faith in Food-Safety System

Few of those polled have faith in the food-safety system’s ability to keep food safe, with only 1 in 3 saying they have a good or great amount of confidence in food manufacturers or government inspectors, the survey found.

The survey was conducted by ICR, a Pennsylvania polling firm, along with Harvard, which is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do a series of surveys on public health topics.

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