Salmonella outbreak caused by....peanut butter?

by Bethany Sanders (Subscribe to Bethany Sanders's posts)
Feb 15th 2007 7:00PM

ConAgra Foods has issued a recall of certain jars of its Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter after an outbreak of salmonella involving 300 people in 39 states.

This is the nation's first known case of salmonella poisoning from peanut butter, and ConAgra says the company is unsure why the CDC is identifying them as the culprit. Tests of their peanut butter have routinely turned up negative, but the company will shut down their plant anyway and try to find the cause. The recall involves jars with the code "2111" on the lid.

Salmonella can cause diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and dehydration. This current outbreak began last August, but officials have only recently linked it to peanut butter. Because it's so unusual, I'm not surprised that it took them this long to find the source. If you eat Peter Pan or Great Value peanut butter, take a minute today to check your lids!

Source

Comments (5)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jarrod 2-16-2007 @ 8:45AM

300 people in... 300 states? I had no idea I missed so much in American History... that'll teach me to snooze through history class again...

pj 2-16-2007 @ 7:37AM

I have been sick along with one of my children for a long time...low grade....upset stomach...loose bowels...headaches...with no tracable cause becuase it was low grade.....we eat this peanut butter regularly...a jar a week between all of us........It was our household favorite....I am sadden in one end to know this and gradeful in another because maybe the problems will go away. We aren't eating peanut butter anytime soon.

Bethany 2-16-2007 @ 8:46AM

Oops! Thanks for the heads up on the typo!

Parris 2-18-2007 @ 12:13PM

I was gut-wrenchingly ill the day I used some of the 2111 peanut butter from Peter Pan, but the serving came from the middle of the jar which is where I had successfully gotten down to before any severe effects happened. Three days of violent vomiting, unable to eat or drink without it coming back up, weakness, nausea, dehydration. Do you suppose the little girl who died at the elementary school in Atlanta of "flu" could have died from salmonella? Can you get a reoccurrence of symptoms days after it seems to have run its course? Even w/o eating any more peanut butter?