Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter

As Doug posted earlier, it looks as though peanut butter has been implicated in the current 400+ person outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium.  Earlier tonight AP cited CDC sources as saying that the Salmonella also may have contributed to three deaths. AP reports that it looks like Minnesota Dept of Health has yet again cracked the case and recovered the outbreak strain from an opened jar of King Nut brand peanut butter, and has epidemiolgy to back it up:

"The commonality among all of our patients was that they ate peanut butter," said Doug Schultz, a spokesman with the Minnesota Department of Health. While the brand of peanut butter couldn’t be confirmed in every case, the majority of patients consumed the same brand, he said Monday.

Here’s a food safety infosheet that focuses on the outbreak. You can download it here.

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About Ben Chapman

Dr. Ben Chapman is a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. As a teenager, a Saturday afternoon viewing of the classic cable movie, Outbreak, sparked his interest in pathogens and public health. With the goal of less foodborne illness, his group designs, implements, and evaluates food safety strategies, messages, and media from farm-to-fork. Through reality-based research, Chapman investigates behaviors and creates interventions aimed at amateur and professional food handlers, managers, and organizational decision-makers; the gate keepers of safe food. Ben co-hosts a biweekly podcast called Food Safety Talk and tries to further engage folks online through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and, maybe not surprisingly, Pinterest. Follow on Twitter @benjaminchapman.