Government May Have Known About Turkey Bacteria

Federal officials may have known about a dangerous form of salmonella at the Cargill turkey plant as early as last year, but didn’t elect to recall the meat until an outbreak killed one and sickened 77 others.

Cargill announced the third-largest meat recall in history last week, impacting 36 million pounds of ground turkey. In April of this year, salmonella Heidelberg was discovered by inspectors in a package of ground turkey that came from the Cargill Arkansas plant. This led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin investigating a cluster of illnesses related to the turkey in May.

According to health experts, federal rules don’t treat salmonella as a poisonous contaminant, unless inspectors find meat that is directly tied to an illness or death. A routine USDA inspection last year of the Cargill plant in Arkansas turned up three samples contaminated with salmonella Heidelberg, according to the FDA.

Antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella are currently treated legally the same as regular salmonella, which means that the USDA often doesn’t have the authority needed to demand a recall. In 1999, a federal appeals court ruled that salmonella was naturally occurring after the USDA tried to shut down a Texas ground-beef plant. Now, the USDA may consider a petition to declare antibiotic-resistant salmonella forms as adulterants.

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