In a press release dated April 2nd 2013, the Pew Charitable Trust released a report entitled “Too Slow: An Analysis of the 2011 Salmonella Ground Turkey Outbreak and Recommendations for Improving Detection and Response. The outbreak involved 130 patients and was associated with 37 hospitalizations and one fatality. | | |
The report faults the federal agencies involved in investigating and controlling food-borne outbreaks for their tardiness in identifying the source of infection and taking appropriate action. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service apparently took 22 weeks following the first reported case to identify the contaminated food vehicle. On August 3rd 2011, Cargill began a recall which ultimately extended to 36 million pounds of ground turkey, much of which had in fact been consumed.