Erin McElhone 3rd Period: Listeria Lurking in Dole Salads

Last summer, cases of Listeria appeared in six states in the Northeast and Midwest U.S.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) says since July 2015, 12 people have been sickened and one person from Michigan has died because of this outbreak. And the agency recently confirmed that five of the people who got sick reported eating packaged salad. Two of them specified that they ate Dole brand packaged salad. How has the connection between the outbreak and this brand of packaged salad, it wasn't until last week that DNA "fingerprinting" tests on a bag of salad greens packaged at a Dole facility in Springfield, Ohio conducted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture came back. The lab tests "showed that the Listeria isolate from the packaged salad was highly related genetically to isolates from ill people," according to a CDC release.

Dole has stopped production at their Springfield facility and have withdrawn from the market all of its Dole-branded and private label packaged salads processed at that location. (They include Fresh Selections, Simple Truth, Marketside, The Little Salad Bar and President's Choice Organics brands.)

Each year in the U.S., the CDC estimates that 1,600 people get sick from Listeria infections and 260 people die. Dole is not the only company that has been caught with a nasty illness in their products. I'm sure we all heard about the E.coli outbreak at Chipotle. You can find a more detailed list of recalled items and products to beware of on the CDC's website here.

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