Andrea Tse

NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Campbell Soup(CPB) is recalling 15 million pounds of SpaghettiOs with meatballs following a cooker malfunction at one of its Texas plants.

The malfunction resulted in undercooked meat, the Agriculture Department announced Thursday evening.

The SpaghettiO meals being recalled consist of children’s meals SpaghettiOs with Meatballs, SpaghettiOs A to Z with Meatballs and SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs. The bottom of their cans are marked with “EST 4K” and expiration dates of between June 2010 and December 2011.

It’s still unclear when the cooker began to malfunction, so Campbell is recalling products that have been out since Dec. 2008, to err on the safe side. The company estimates that about 35,000 cases of the SpaghettiOs on recall are currently on the market.

Campbell adds that much of this has probably already been eaten.

For more details on the recall, Campbell’s is offering a hotline at (866) 495-3774.

A division of Johnson & Johnson is recalling 43 over-the-counter medicines made for infants and children — including liquid versions of Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl — after federal regulators identified what they called deficiencies at the company’s manufacturing facility.

The voluntary recall, which was announced late Friday by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, affects hundreds of thousands of bottles of medicine in homes and on store shelves throughout the United States and its territories and in nine other countries — a vast portion of the children’s medicine market.

The Food and Drug Administration is advising parents and caregivers to stop using the affected products, although Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg called the potential for serious health problems resulting from the medications “remote.”

FDA inspectors had begun a routine inspection April 19 in the company’s Fort Washington, Pa., plant when they noticed “manufacturing deficiencies” that triggered the recall, said Douglas Stearn, a senior FDA official.

Stearn said the plant’s manufacturing process was “not in control,” a term regulators use to describe flawed procedures that affect the composition of medicine. Federal investigators do not know when the problems at McNeil began, but Stearn said that “this does go back in time” and that “we have to try to figure that out.”

While the FDA investigates, McNeil has suspended operations at the facility. In a statement, the company said: “Some of the products included in the recall may contain a higher concentration of active ingredient than is specified; others contain inactive ingredients that may not meet internal testing requirements; and others may contain tiny particles.” It said the problems may affect “purity, potency or quality.”

Marc Boston, a McNeil spokesman, would not discuss the deficiencies cited by the FDA or say when the manufacturing facility was shut down. The company also declined to disclose the amount of products affected by the recall. In addition to the United States, Puerto Rico and Guam, the medicines were sold in Canada; the Dominican Republic; Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates; Fiji; Guatemala; Jamaica; Panama; Trinidad and Tobago; and Kuwait.

A complete list of recalled products is on the company’s Web site.

McNeil received consumer complaints associated with some of the recalled medicines, but the company’s decision to pull them was not made on “the basis of adverse medical events,” said Boston, who declined to elaborate.

If a child who has taken any of the recalled medications exhibits any unexpected symptoms, parents or caregivers should contact a doctor, federal officials said. Consumers or health-care providers who experience problems connected to the recalled medicines are asked to contact the FDA.

As of Saturday, the FDA was not aware of any health problems related to the recalled products, said spokeswoman Elaine Gansz Bobo.

Parents and caregivers can use generic versions of the affected medicines; they are not affected by the recall. The FDA cautioned against giving adult versions to infants and children, noting the potential for serious problems.

This is at least the third major recall of Tylenol products by McNeil since 2008.

In January, McNeil recalled 49 types of Tylenol products made for adults and two Tylenol products made for children after consumers complained of a mold-like odor and of temporary and minor nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea. The company determined that some of the medicines had been contaminated by trace amounts of a chemical that is sometimes present on shipping and storage material.

In 2008, McNeil recalled 21 types of children’s and infants’ Tylenol liquid products, saying that although the products met internal standards, an unused portion of one inactive ingredient did not meet all quality standards

The expensive “sheep’s milk” cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow’s milk. And a jar of “Sturgeon caviar” was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish.

Some honey makers dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup, their competitors say, but still market it as 100 percent pure at a premium price.

And last year, a Fairfax man was convicted of selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as much more expensive grouper, red snapper and flounder. The fish was bought by national chain retailers, wholesalers and food service companies, and ended up on dinner plates across the country.

“Food fraud” has been documented in fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup, and appears to pose a significant problem in the seafood industry. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies, including E&J Gallo and Heinz USA.

Such deception has been happening since Roman times, but it is getting new attention as more products are imported and a tight economy heightens competition. And the U.S. food industry says federal regulators are not doing enough to combat it.

“It’s growing very rapidly, and there’s more of it than you might think,” said James Morehouse, a senior partner at A.T. Kearney Inc., which is studying the issue for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the food and beverage industry.

John Spink, an expert on food and packaging fraud at Michigan State University, estimates that 5 to 7 percent of the U.S. food supply is affected but acknowledges the number could be greater. “We know what we seized at the border, but we have no idea what we didn’t seize,” he said.

The job of ensuring that food is accurately labeled largely rests with the Food and Drug Administration. But it has been overwhelmed in trying to prevent food contamination, and fraud has remained on a back burner.

The recent development of high-tech tools — including DNA testing — has made it easier to detect fraud that might have gone unnoticed a decade ago. DNA can be extracted from cells of fish and meat and from other foods, such as rice and even coffee. Technicians then identify the species by comparing the DNA to a database of samples.

Another tool, isotope ratio analysis, can determine subtle differences between food — whether a fish was farmed or wild, for example, or whether caviar came from Finland or a U.S. stream.

The techniques have become so accessible that two New York City high school students, working with scientists at the Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History last year, discovered after analyzing DNA in 11 of 66 foods — including the sheep’s milk cheese and caviar — bought randomly at markets in Manhattan were mislabeled.

“We put so much emphasis on food and purity of ingredients and where they come from,” said Mark Stoeckle, a physician and DNA expert at Rockefeller University who advised the students. “But then there are things selling that are not what they say on the label. There’s an important issue here in terms of economics and consumer safety.”

It is not clear how many food manufacturers, importers and retailers are testing products, but large companies with valuable brands to protect have been increasingly using the new technology, said Vincent Paez, director of food safety business development at Thermo Fisher Scientific, which sells some of the equipment and performs laboratory analysis, including DNA testing.

Still, of the hundreds of customers who bought 10 million pounds of mislabeled Vietnamese catfish — including national chains and top rated restaurants — only one or two caught the deception, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Johns, who prosecuted the Fairfax fish importer. “It was the rare exception, not the norm,” he said.

Heinz USA and Kraft Foods, two giant food makers with well- established internal controls, nevertheless fell victim to “Operation Rotten Tomato,” a conspiracy in which the scion of a California farming dynasty was indicted this month. He was accused of disguising millions of pounds of moldy tomato paste as a higher- grade product and selling it to foodmakers.

And E&J Gallo, the nation’s largest wine seller, sold 18 million bottles of Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir between 2006 and 2008 that had been filled in France with wine made from cheaper merlot and syrah grapes, according to a French court that last month indicted a dozen of its citizens in a scam dubbed Pinotgate.

At the FDA’s first public meeting on food fraud last year, groups across the industry complained that it is not doing enough.

“If it’s not going to hurt or kill someone, FDA’s resources are limited enough that they can’t take time to address it,” said Bob Bauer, a spokesman for the National Honey Packers & Dealers Association and the North American Olive Oil Association.

Both groups have petitioned the FDA to set standards for honey and olive oil, which would make it possible for companies to sue competitors that sell an adulterated product. The olive oil industry has been waiting for FDA to act on its request since 1991; major honey and beekeeping groups have been waiting since 2006. An agency spokesman said those requests are pending.

One longtime crabmeat seller on the Chesapeake Bay said he has complained, without results, to the FDA for years about a competitor who imports cheap crab and repackages it as Chesapeake blue crab, a different species that can be sold for twice or three times the price.

The National Seafood Inspection Laboratory, part of the Marine Fisheries Service, randomly sampled seafood from vendors between 1988 and 1997; it found that 34 percent had been mislabeled and sold as a different species. In 2004, scientists at the University of North Carolina estimated that 77 percent of snapper sold in the United States is mislabeled.

“With the recession, people are trying to make money in any way, shape or form,” said William Gergits, a co-founder of Therion International LLC, which specializes in DNA-based testing services. “Southeast grouper and red snapper fisheries here are limited. If you think about all the restaurants in Florida, there’s not enough supply to go to those restaurants.”

Despite growing imports, the FDA inspects just 2 percent of fish coming into the United States from other countries.

The agency wants to create a surveillance system that would alert regulators to likely fraud, said Jennifer Thomas, director of enforcement at FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. She said the FDA regularly swaps intelligence with two other agencies that share responsibility for catching seafood fraud. It has also bought a $170,000 DNA sequencer for its Seattle field office.

She pointed to several FDA actions against food fraud in recent months, including the first debarment of a seafood importer, suggesting that may be a deterrent.

Peter Xuong Lam, president of Virginia Star Seafood Corporation of Fairfax, was convicted last year of selling the mislabeled catfish. Ten other individuals and companies were also charged. Lam was sentenced to five years in prison and is barred from importing food into the United States for the next 20 years.

Authentification should be a standard practice throughout the food industry, Stoeckle said: “If it’s simple enough that high school students with some supervision can do it, it moves out of the research application to something you can do regularly.”

Source

Recall: Products Containing Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
Federal health authorities announced Thursday the recall of a commonly used flavor enhancer after samples of the product were found to contain salmonella.

“I would say it’s likely to be in thousands of food products,” said Dr. Jenny Scott, senior adviser to the director at the Office of Food Safety at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, about the product, called hydrolyzed vegetable protein, also called HVP.

The bacterium, identified as Salmonella Tennessee, was found in HVP manufactured by Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, Nevada, the officials said.

HVP is used in processed foods, including soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravy, seasoned snack foods and dressings.

“We are working hard to respond to this particular outbreak; we also are working hard to put in place the kinds of preventive control measures to prevent this kind of contamination from happening in the first place,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg.

Officials noted in a telephone conference call with reporters that no illnesses have been reported and any risk to consumers would be considered low.

“Many of the foods that incorporated this product at very low levels have kill steps in place that would eliminate salmonella,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, FDA’s principal deputy commissioner. He was referring to steps in preparation that would heat the product enough to kill any bacteria. “For those that don’t, we’re providing specific guidance around the need to recall,” he said.

But officials acknowledged they did not yet know just how many products might wind up being recalled.

“The manufacturer had many first-level consignees who obviously had individuals and firms that they sold to,” said Dr. Jeff Farrar, associate commissioner for food safety, FDA’s Office of Foods. “We expect this to get larger over the next several days to, actually, maybe several weeks.”

A call to the manufacturer was not returned immediately.

Sharfstein said the agency learned of the problem in early February, when a Basic Foods customer tested the product and reported to FDA that it was contaminated.

Farrar said he did not know when the plant was last inspected.

The recall affects all bulk HVP produced at the facility since September 17. The FDA posted several dozen products containing the ingredient at www.foodsafety.gov, but officials said the list was not complete. The recalled products include dips, salad dressings and soup mixes.

Farrar said the agency was recommending recalls of those products containing HVP that might be eaten without processing or cooking that would kill the bacteria. But more needs to be done, he said. “This situation clearly underscores the need for new food safety legislation to equip FDA with the tools we need to prevent contamination,” said Farrar.

Salmonella bacteria sometimes cause fatal infections in young children, elderly people and anyone with a weakened immune system.

Symptoms in healthy people might include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said the recall is “yet more proof that the Food and Drug Administration needs more authority, more inspectors and more resources to ensure that our food supply is safe.”

It added, “Most Americans would be stunned to learn that FDA doesn’t even have the authority to make recalls like these mandatory.”

A bill passed in July by the House with overwhelming bipartisan support would go a long way toward beefing up the agency’s ability to intervene in such cases, said Erik Olson, director of food and consumer product safety at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

“The existing law is basically a reactive law,” he said. “If you find contamination problems, the FDA reacts and goes out and tries to find the problem and asks for a voluntary recall.”

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the law pending in the Senate, “would change the whole system, modernize it to say we’re going to try to prevent the contamination before it occurs.”

But support for the bill is not universal.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is seeking changes in the bill before passage, according to Senior Policy Associate Kate Fitzgerald.

“The last thing we want to do as a government is to inhibit these regional food systems by poorly crafted regulation,” she said. Under the proposed legislation, a farmer selling broccoli heads would be classified as a farmer, but a farmer selling broccoli florets would be classified as a facility and subject to more rigorous controls, she said.

“No one benefits if we pass a food-safety bill but it doesn’t make the food system better,” she said.

Steve Etka, legislative director at the National Organic Coalition, offered a similar view. “We want to make sure the bill is clear that it’s targeted toward the riskiest behaviors,” he said. “Right now, we think it’s kind of missing the mark in that regard.”

Information current as of noon March 04, 2010
56 entries in list
Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein Containing Products Recall List: Main Page

Note: This list includes products subject to recall in the United States since February 2010 related to hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) paste and powder distributed by Basic Food Flavors, Inc. This list will be updated with publicly available information as received. The information is current as of the date indicated. Once included, recalls will remain listed. If we learn that any information is not accurate, we will revise the list as soon as possible. When available, this database also includes photos of recalled products that have been voluntarily submitted by recalling firms to the FDA to assist the public in identifying those products that are subject to recall.

Basically, the companies receiving these letters did one of two things wrong. Let me present these two issues and give a few examples for each and then tell you what I think about all of this.

Issue #1: The product label bears a nutrient content claim but does not meet the requirements to make the claim. Specifically if the product package includes the claim “0 grams trans fat” and the product contains more than 13 grams of total fat, 4 grams of saturated fat or 480 mg of sodium per labeled serving, it must include a disclosure statement on the label, adjacent to the claim, referring the consumer to nutrition information for those nutrients.

Here are a few examples:

* Gorton’s Beer Batter Crispy Battered Fish Fillet: They make the “0 grams trans fat” claim without a disclosure statement when a serving of the product contains 19 g total fat, 4.5 g saturated fat and 680 mg sodium per serving.

* Dreyer’s Nestle Drumstick Classic Vanilla Fudge and Dreyer’s Dibs Bite Size Ice Cream Snacks Vanilla Ice Cream with Nestle Crunch Coating: The package label states “O grams trans Fat” but the products contain 19 grams total fat; 10 grams saturated fat (Drumstick) and 28 grams total fat, 20 grams saturated fat (Dibs).

* Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening: This product doesn’t meet the requirement for the use of the term “cholesterol free” on its label because the product contains 6 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon (it exceeds the limit of 2 grams or less saturated fat per Reference Amount Customarily Consumed)… and it doesn’t comply with the requirements for making the claim “less saturated fat than butter.”

Issue #2: The therapeutic claims on their website established that the product is a drug because it is intended for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease.

* *Salada Naturally Decaf Green Tea (Redco Foods): Their website promotes their tea products for conditions that cause them to be drugs under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. For example, they make the statement that green tea can inhibit the cancer process and regulate cholesterol levels.

* Diamond of California Shelled Walnuts: Again, the FDA determined, based on claims made on their website, that their walnuts products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs. Here are some of the statements made on their website that FDA mentioned specifically:

o “Studies indicate that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts may help lower cholesterol; protect against heart disease, stroke and some cancers; ease arthritis and other inflammatory diseases; and even fight depression and other mental illnesses.”

o “In treating major depression, for example, omega-3s seem to work by making it easier for brain cell receptors to process mood-related signals from neighboring
neurons.”

o “There’s good evidence that omega-3s can increase HDL (good cholesterol), further reducing the risk of stroke and heart disease.”

So what do I think about all of this? I totally understand FDA going after processed food products like frozen desserts or breaded fish fillets boasting “0 grams trans fat” when they are still high in total fat and saturated fat. Job well done here, although they are really only asking for the companies to add a disclosure statement to correct this. CSPI and other nutrition experts like myself would ideally want them to ban the statement entirely in a product exceeding the total fat and saturated fat guidelines.

And I would understand them going after companies stating “made with whole wheat,” when the product only contains a small portion of whole wheat – but then they didn’t go after these companies in this go-around.

But I’m not so thrilled about them going after companies selling whole foods like olive oil, walnuts and green tea. I am trying to move people toward eating more whole foods – foods that offer phytochemicals and other potentially helpful food components such as fiber and monounsaturated fat – instead of processed foods. These companies mostly got in trouble for the information they include on their websites. Maybe it’s just me, but I am much more concerned about what is being stated on product labels than on company websites.

As far as information on websites, I understand that health information and study results presented should clearly state whether the evidence is “suggestive” or “preliminary.” But in some cases I think consumers actually benefit from seeing some of this new information as it is emerging, especially if the bottom line is leading them to consume more whole foods. If we all waited for the government to review study evidence and make their all important “health claims” for various nutrient and disease associations, some of this potentially powerful information might not get out to those interested for another decade.

What do you think? What are some of the most outrageous health claims you have seen on food packages?

A Rhode Island meat company recalled 1.24 million pounds of pepper-coated salami Saturday, after officials conducting a months-long, multistate investigation of a salmonella outbreak compared shopping receipts of those who got sick.

The recall by Daniele Inc. comes amid an outbreak that has sickened 184 people in 38 states since July.

Daniele has been identified as the source of the ongoing outbreak by William Keene, a senior epidemiologist at the public health division in Oregon, where eight people have fallen ill.

Keene said Saturday that some questions remain, such as whether it was the meat or the pepper that was contaminated.

Investigators in Washington state found that many of the 14 residents there who got sick shopped at Costco, Keene said. Costco did not return calls seeking comment on the recall Saturday, but it has posted notice of it on its website.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some 390 tons of ground beef produced by a California meat packer, some of it nearly two years ago, is being recalled for fear of potentially deadly E. coli bacterium tainting, U.S. officials said on Monday.

The beef was produced by Huntington Meat Packing Inc of Montebello, California, and shipped mainly to California outlets, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety arm said.

An initial problem, in ground beef shipped by the plant from January 5 to January 15, was discovered during a regular safety check, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said.

It said it had received no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of the recalled products.

During a follow-up review of the company’s records, government inspectors determined additional products produced and shipped in 2008 to be of concern because they may have been contaminated with E.coli, the service said in a notice on its web site.

This batch was produced from February 19, 2008, to May 15, 2008. It also had been shipped to distribution centers, restaurants and hotels within California, the notice said.

“While these products are normally used fresh, the establishment is taking this action out of concern that some product may still be frozen and in commerce,” it said.

E. coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause kidney failure in the most serious cases.

The service said it routinely conducts checks to verify that recalling firms notify customers, including restaurants, of the recall and that steps are taken to make sure the product is no longer available to consumers.

Jan. 15, 2010—

A recall of Tylenol products that began last month with the popular Tylenol arthritis caplet expanded this morning to include more than two dozen other over-the-counter products manufactured by McNeil Healthcare LLC, the arm of Johnson & Johnson that manufactures Tylenol products.

The broadened directive adds 54 million bottles of product to the recall, boosting the total number of bottles recalled by McNeil to 60 million, according to the company.

McNeill initiated a voluntary recall of Tylenol Arthritis Relief Caplets at the end of December after consumer complaints of stomach problems. The problems were linked to the presence of a chemical called 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA), which results from the breakdown of a chemical in wood pallets used to transport and store packaging materials for the drugs.

Now it appears that the problem extended into other Tylenol products as well, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Tylenol Extra Strength, Rolaids and a number of children’s medicines are now included in the recall, which affects 27 products in various packaging quantities.

McNeil released a statement today in which it said the voluntary recall is being conducted in consultation with the FDA and affects a number of products for which there have been no complaints.

The company added that the musty-smelling chemical thought to be the cause of the sickness posed no fatal risk to those who ingest it.

“The health effects of this chemical have not been well studied, but no serious events have been documented in the medical literature,” the statement read.

“In addition to the product recall, McNeil Consumer Healthcare is continuing its investigation into the issue and is taking further actions that include ceasing shipment of products produced using materials shipped on these wood pallets and requiring suppliers who ship materials to our plants to discontinue the use of these pallets.”

In its statement, the company advised consumers who purchased the affected products to stop using them and contact McNeil for information about how to get a refund or a replacement. The company provided the address for its Web site, www.mcneilproductrecall.com, as well as a toll-free number: (888) 222-6036.

Prior to today’s recall, the FDA had cited at least two of the company’s products in a letter to McNeil, as these products had been the subject of complaints about an “uncharacteristic smell,” similar to the one that helped trigger the recall of the arthritis caplets.

“Since the date of the discovery, your firm did not extend the assessment of the event to other products that received packaging components from the same supplier,” said the FDA’s letter, which was signed by Jose R. Lopez, an investigator, and Raquel Gonzalez Rivera, a chemist.

The letter goes on to cite over 10 “musty-moldy odor” complaints about Rolaids and over 39 similar complaints about Tylenol Extra Strength, “including three adverse event reports.”

The letter is dated Jan. 8, 2010, but was posted to the FDA’s Web site Jan. 13.

“Certainly, the FDA report raises serious questions about the manufacturer’s response,” said Robert Field, professor of health management and policy at the Drexel University School of Public Health. “The report has found that the investigation was limited…that the procedures for quality control were not in writing…and various other lapses that were fairly significant.”

The FDA report further criticized McNeil for inadequate responses to complaints, noting that they first received heightened complaints about the musty odor in 2008 and testing confirmed its presence in September of that year.

“Your quality unit failed to conduct additional testing to evaluate the possibility of chemical contamination or other change or deterioration in the distributed drug product,” the FDA letter says.

Current problems with Rolaids and Tylenol Extra Strength are attributed to another testing failure.

“Investigations of an unexplained discrepancy did not extend to other batches of the same drug product and other drug products that may have been associated with the specific failure or discrepancy,” the report said.

In response to an inquiry from ABC News correspondent David Kerley, the company responded on Thursday:

“McNeil Consumer Healthcare has received an FDA form 483 dated Jan. 8, 2010, and is actively working with the FDA to address their concerns.”

Effects of Tainted Pills Not Deadly

One positive for consumers is that, as ABC News Senior Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser noted in December, after the first recall was announced, the effects of the tainted pills were not life threatening.

“They’re not that severe, we’re talking about vomiting, diarrhea,” said Besser. However, he advised, “if you have this product, you should get rid of them, safely dispose of them in your trash. You don’t want them around.”

Field agreed, following news of the initial recall.

“It does not look like there were serious health effects, if any,” he said, “but why take a chance? These products are supposed to improve your health, not hurt it.”

Updated More Products

Johnson & Johnson issued a massive recall Friday of over-the-counter drugs including Tylenol, Motrin and St. Joseph’s aspirin because of a moldy smell that has made people sick.

It was the second such recall in less than a month because of the smell, which regulators said was first reported to McNeil in 2008. Federal regulators criticized the company, saying it didn’t respond to the complaints quickly enough, wasn’t thorough in how it handled the problem and didn’t inform the Food and Drug Administration quickly.

The recall includes some batches of regular and extra-strength Tylenol, children’s Tylenol, eight-hour Tylenol, Tylenol arthritis, Tylenol PM, children’s Motrin, Motrin IB, Benadryl Rolaids, Simply Sleep, and St. Joseph’s aspirin.

The FDA and Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare Products said they did not know the number of bottles recalled. It included caplet and geltab products sold in the Americas, the United Arab Emirates, and Fiji.

Consumers should check the full list at http://www.mcneilproductrecall.com to identify the recalled batches.

The CDC said a New York adult with underlying medical conditions had died and another possibly related death in New Hampshire was under investigation. State officials attribute the New Hampshire death to the O157:H7 E. coli bacteria.

All but three of the 28 cases listed by the CDC were in the U.S. Northeast and 18 were in the New England states. Sixteen hospitalizations were reported, said a CDC spokeswoman. The bacteria involved were from a common strain, so tests were under way to see if all of the reported cases were related.

Over the weekend, Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York, recalled 545,699 lbs (248,450 kg) of ground beef products.

The Agriculture Department, which oversees meat safety, said an investigation led it to conclude “there is an association between the fresh ground beef products and illnesses in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts.” USDA worked with state and federal officials in examining a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses.

A potentially deadly bacteria, E. coli can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and, in severe cases, kidney failure. The very young, the elderly and people with weak immune systems are the most susceptible to foodborne illness.

A string of food-borne safety scares led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation this summer to require more inspections and oversight of food manufacturers and would give the government new authority to order recalls.

Fairbank Farms announced the recall on Saturday. The beef was produced in mid-September and probably was labeled for sale before the end of the month, said USDA.

It went to retailers including Trader Joe’s, Price Chopper, Lancaster and Wild Harvest, Shaw’s, a unit of Supervalu (SVU.N), BJ’s (BJ.N), Ford Brothers and Giant, a unit of Ahold (AHLN.AS), in eight states — Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

A complete list of products is available at:

link.reuters.com/vyx27f

The beef was produced Sept. 14 to 16, and the company urged consumers to check their freezers for products listed in the recall. Labels of the recalled packages will say EST 492 inside the USDA