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Consumers Still Getting Sick From Tainted Peanut Butter

Reports of Illness Continue, Months after the Recall

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

June 1, 2007

• Judge Nixes Peanut Butter Class Action • FDA Failed to Follow Up on 2004 Peanut Butter Contamination • Peter Pan Returning To Store Shelves • Consumers Still Getting Sick From Tainted Peanut Butter • Fourth Peanut Butter Death Reported • Peanut Butter Recall Extended to Products Made as Early as 2004 • Peanut Butter Scare Stirs Congress • Consumers Left Holding the Peanut Butter Jar • Earlier Peanut Butter Contamination Kept Quiet • Peanut Butter Developed as a Health Food • Third Death Blamed on Peanut Butter • Peanut Butter Recalls Spread to Ice Cream & Desserts • FDA Says Peanut Butter Salmonella Outbreak Is "Ongoing" • Salmonella Confirmed in Peanut Butter • Second Death Linked To Tainted Peanut Butter • Death Linked To Tainted Peanut Butter • ConAgra Recalls Tainted Peanut Butter as Complaints Mount • FDA Widens Peanut Butter Warning • Reports of Peanut Butter-Borne Illness Increase • FDA Warns of Salmonella in Peanut Butter --- • Consumer Complaints about Peanut Butter --- • Salmonella: What It Is • More about Food Safety ...

The story had faded from the headlines by the beginning of spring, but government health officials say consumers are still getting sick from eating contaminated Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter. Both brands are made by food giant ConAgra.

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention says 628 people in 47 states have been affected by salmonella poisoning from the tainted peanut butter, produced at a Georgia plant.

While most of the product has been pulled from store shelves, health officials say some of the recalled jars may still be in consumers’ pantries. The recalled peanut butter can be identified by the product code beginning with 2111 on the lid.

The outbreak was first reported in late January 2007, and by the middle of February the CDC had counted 288 official cases of salmonella poisoning. While the CDC does not officially attribute any deaths to the outbreak, families of at least four elderly consumers say their loved ones died after eating tainted peanut butter. Their deaths are not counted, officials say, because no autopsies were performed.

Eight-one year old Rosie Haskins died February 26. Her family reported to ConsumerAffairs.com that a partially eaten jar of peanut butter was found in her room. The jar had the telltale 2111 stamped on the lid.

The other death reported to ConsumerAffairs.com was that of 85-year-old Mary Halstead of West Virginia. She died after her son made her a peanut butter sandwich -- her favorite food.

"Dumb old me, I made her a peanut butter sandwich at home and brought it to her at the hospital, because it was just about the only thing she wanted to eat," Larry Halstead, her son, said. "In no time, she got just 100 percent worse." Halstead said his mother then became semi-comatose and died.

Two other deaths have been unofficially attributed to the tainted peanut butter.

An elderly Chicago-area man, George Baldwin, was said to be in relatively good health just before his death from complications of food poisoning, shortly after he ate a peanut butter sandwich.

"He puts the peanut butter on toast, eats the toast, in six hours he develops fever, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting -- all of which are signs of salmonella poisoning," Baldwin family attorney Don McGarrah said.

A 76-year old Pennsylvania woman, Roberta Barkay of Philadelphia, died in January from complications of food poisoning, and family members contend she too ate peanut butter shortly before her death. The family has hired an attorney who has filed suit against the manufacturer, ConAgra.

While new cases of peanut butter-related salmonella have tapered off, the CDC is warning consumers to be careful. The agency says consumers should carefully examine peanut butter jars on kitchen shelves to make sure the product is not included in the recall.

“This outbreak demonstrates the potential for widespread illness from a broadly distributed contaminated product, one that had not previously been implicated in a food-borne illness outbreak in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement.

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