For peanut butter eaters and your children...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070216...WaHnIXTvT9H2ocA
Thu Feb 15, 8:16 PM ET

Government scientists struggled Thursday to pinpoint the source of the first U.S. salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter, the kid favorite packed into millions of lunchboxes every day.

Nearly 300 people in 39 states have fallen ill since August, and federal health investigators said they strongly suspect Peter Pan peanut butter and certain batches of Wal-Mart's Great Value house brand — both manufactured by ConAgra Foods Inc.

Shoppers across the country were warned to throw out jars with a product code on the lid beginning with "2111," which denotes the plant where it was made.

How the dangerous germ got into the peanut butter was a mystery. But because peanuts are usually heated to high, germ-killing temperatures during the manufacturing process, government and industry officials said the contamination may have been caused by dirty jars or equipment.

"We think we have very strong evidence that this was the brand of peanut butter. Now it goes to the next step of going to the place where the peanut butter was made and focusing in on the testing," said Dr. Mike Lynch, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The suspect peanut butter was produced by ConAgra at its only peanut butter plant, in Sylvester, Ga., federal investigators said.

ConAgra said it is not clear how many jars are affected by the recall. But the plant is the sole producer of the nationally distributed Peter Pan brand, and the recall covers all peanut butter — smooth and chunky alike — produced by the plant from May 2006 until now.

"We're talking a lot of jars of peanut butter," said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

FDA inspectors visited the now shut-down plant Wednesday and Thursday to try to pinpoint where the contamination could have happened. The FDA last inspected the plant in 2005. Testing was also being done on at least some the salmonella victims' peanut butter jars, but investigators said some may have already been discarded.

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Salmonella sickens about 40,000 people a year in the U.S. and kills about 600. It can cause diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.

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"We're trying to understand what else we need to do or should be doing," Kircher said.

An estimated 974 million pounds of peanut butter are sold each year in the U.S., and peanut butter and jelly is the most popular sandwich among children. Peter Pan is one of the nation's top three brands, though well behind market leader Jif. Great Value peanut butter is also produced by some other manufacturers for Wal-Mart.

In a measure of peanut butter's popularity, ConAgra's hot line was swamped with so many calls after the recall was announced on Wednesday that many people got a busy signal.

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The outbreak was detected by the CDC and state health agencies when they noticed spikes in the cases of people sickened by an unusual type of salmonella, starting in August. Once peanut butter emerged as a link, the CDC notified the FDA.

Salmonella commonly originates in the feces of birds and animals, and could be introduced at a multitude of stages in the peanut butter-making process. But many safeguards are in place.

While rodents and birds commonly get into peanut storage bins, germs are killed when raw peanuts are roasted. When making peanut butter, the nuts are again heated — above the salmonella-killing temperature of 165 degrees — as they are ground into a paste and mixed with other ingredients before being squirted into jars and quickly sealed.

"The heating process is sufficient to kill salmonella, should it be present," said Mike Doyle (news, bio, voting record), director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, in the state that produces nearly half of the nation's peanuts.
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The strain in this outbreak, Salmonella serotype Tennessee, is comparatively rare, as is salmonella contamination of peanut products, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

It may have taken a long time to identify peanut butter as the source because "it's just not one of the first things you'd suspect," Smith DeWaal said.

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To get a refund, consumers should send lids and their names and addresses to ConAgra Foods, P.O. Box 57078, Irvine, CA 92619-7078. For more information, call (866) 344-6970.

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Associated Press Writers Andrew Bridges in Washington, Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., and Elliott Minor in Butler, Ga., contributed to this report.


btw--- here's a photoChop of my experience (my 2 kids and I got the fever, stomach cramps and the runs... yech!)

 

I've GOT ONE YE HA....


Time to eat it, get sick and get rich.

 

My wife's stepdad used to work for Hunt & Wesson(the plant the contamination was traced to) in Sylvester,GA. He told me that all jars that leave that plant have a product code beginning with 2111 regardless of the batch. I was one of the people here in south Ga that got salmonella from Peter damn Pan peanut butter. I was sick as hell for about 3 days. Wal-mart's Great value brand is produced in this same plant. Throw it out if you have either brand. Salmonella sucks.

 

We had suspect PB in the pantry, tossed it.

 

Thank God I only buy Skippy.

 

Choosy Moms choose Jiff....apparently my wife ain't all that picky....

 

I had some Tuesday, threw the jar out Wednesday when we heard about it... feeling fine on Saturday still.

 

I only buy Skippy too. But now I'm afraid to eat any peanut butter. I had food poisoning once. It was HORRIBLE!!!!

 

I'll just stick with cheeseburgers.

 

My boss keeps a jar of Peter Pan on his desk to knock the edge off his hunger during the day. He's on a diet. I walked in on him Thursday while he was in the process of putting it into his garbage. I asked why he was throwing an half eaten jar of PB away. After all, he had gone thru half of it with no problem so far. He said that the salmonella could be on the bottom of the jar.



He'll probably make it to Vice President of the company one day.

 

Moral to the story: Tainted PB will help move one up the corporate ladder.

 

Mmmmm, I've got several jars of it. I'll be back in a little while. I need a sandwich.