Bacterium Beef: Bacteria found in some beef caused two deaths
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November 6, 2009
Filed under News
For you beef lovers out there, be on guard. A bacterium called Escherichia coli has been discovered in more than half a million pounds of beef! This bacterium (E. coli) is deadly and has caused the death of two people! The United States Department of Agriculture announced last week that Fairbank Farms in Ashville (NY) was recalling (withdrawing) more than half a million of their fresh ground beef that may have been contaminated with the bacteria. The recall was to be distributed in 8 states but Fairbank Farms said retailers may have sent the beef out to even more states.
According to CNN (NY), two people have died from the bacteria in the beef and twenty eight more people are sick from the bacteria. Sixteen out of the twenty eight people are in hospitals, and three of those sixteen have developed kidney failure from the contamination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed this. These people are in Massachusetts (8), Connecticut and New Hampshire (8), Maine (2), Pennsylvania (2), South Dakota (2), and one of each is in California, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. So, luckily, it doesn’t seem to have reached Florida just yet.
When you go shopping for beef, look for “EST. 492″ printed inside the package or on the nutrition label, that means that it was inspected for bacteria by the USDA. To be safe, the CDC advises that when you purchase ground beef you ask if it were subject to recall, and when purchased, safely prepare it by cooking to a high enough temperature to kill possible bacteria (160 degrees Fahrenheit).
Written by Rose Sleep
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