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New England Consumers Warned Of Tainted Beef

Another E. coli outbreak in ground beef

September 4, 2007

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Just a week after E. coli-tainted ground beef sickened consumers in the Pacific Northwest, a meat processor has announced a recall of ground beef patties sold in six New England states.

Fairbanks Farms says the meat was sold this week at Shaw’s Supermarkets in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The affected ground beef came from a small lot. The company says the meat would have been purchased on September 5 between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. It was in 1.33 pound trays marked with the code “Est. 492” inside the USDA mark of inspections and the date code “243”. The nutritional label has a time stamp between “17:05” and “17:25.”

Fairbanks Farms said it was able to trace the contamination to a single warehouse, but not until a shipment of the meat had been sent to the New England supermarkets for sale to consumers.

As in the case of meat recalled by Interstate Meats of Oregon, the Fairbanks Farms ground beef may be contaminated by the E. coli bacteria, which infects an estimated 73,000 people in the U.S. each year.

The infection is very dangerous for children, the elderly or people with weakened immune systems. It can also cause kidney failure, and patients can spend weeks undergoing dialysis.

Last week 41,000 pounds of ground beef distributed under the Northwest Finest brand was recalled after nine people, including a child, were stricken with E. coli symptoms.

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