(2009-11-03) Ecoli Ny Outbreak

Two people, one from New Hampshire and another from upstate New York, have died after eating Ground Beef that may be responsible for an E-Coli outbreak linked to illness in more than two dozen people. The suspect beef was produced by a company in western New York State, FairbankFarms, which issued a voluntary recall Saturday for 545,699 pounds of ground beef products... The products went to retailers in eight states: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The stores receiving them included Trader Joes, Giant, Price Chopper, Wild Harvest and Shaw's.

Nov13 update: Dr. David Theno, who retired last year, said he worked with Cost Co and AFA Foods' predecessor company to devise new safety systems, and he confirmed previous statements by AFA Foods officials that they started testing trim at their grinding facilities, like Costco did, but then stopped when slaughterhouses balked at selling them trim. Like most ground beef producers, FairbankFarms uses multiple suppliers of trimmings, and the limits of its finished product testing became apparent in 2007 when it found E-Coli in its ground beef and could not determine which of the trim suppliers had been the source.