Check your ground beef before you grill out this Memorial Day weekend. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service says stores in nine states may have received beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
The service announced this week that 1.8 million pounds of ground beef products were being recalled because they could be contaminated. The federal agency has since named retailers that may have received the tainted products.
Some are as follows:
? Gordon Food Service Marketplace stores in Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin
? Giorgio’s Italian Delicatessen in Stuart, Florida
? M Sixty Six General Store in Orleans, Michigan
? Buchtel Food Mart in Buchtel, Ohio
What government tests found in your meat
A representative for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the meat is being removed from store shelves. But consumers should return or throw out meat that has the code EST.2574B and a production date between March 31 and April 18, 2014.
The ground beef is sold under a variety of labels, according to the USDA, but comes from Wolverine Packing Co. in Detroit.
“While none of the Wolverine Packing product has tested positive for the pathogen implicated in this outbreak, the company felt it was prudent to take this voluntary recall action in response to the illnesses and initial outbreak investigation findings,” Chuck Sanger, a spokesman for Wolverine Packing, said in a statement.
Eleven people across four states are suspected to have been sickened by the product, according to the USDA. Ten of those people were sickened after eating at restaurants that received contaminated meat. But federal officials say regulations prohibit them from naming those restaurants.
“People who were exposed were already exposed, so it doesn’t help the public to tell them now that a certain restaurant was associated with these illnesses,” said David Goldman, assistant administrator for the Office of Public Health Science at the USDA. “Our job really is to identify product that may still be available.”
According to what officials received from the company, he said, the meat went to many states.
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