Salmonella Are Not Picky

A major recall of deli meats potentially contaminated with salmonella has been widened considerably in the U.S. as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that products named Fratelli Beretta brand Antipasto Gran Beretta, sold at Costco, and Busseto brand Charcuterie Sampler, sold at Sam's Club, were being recalled. In the first week of January, the latter brand had already recalled a specific lot of its Charcuterie Sampler that had been shipped to Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.

The CDC most recently announced that 47 people had been reported ill in 22 states as a result of the salmonella contamination and that 10 had been hospitalized – likely an undercount. Any packages by the products mentioned above should be thrown away and any surfaces they touched should be washed with soap and hot water, according to the government agency.

Salmonella outbreaks are often associated with meat products – both raw and processed – but U.S. recalls have in the past years been issued for all sorts of foods from fresh produce to fish, seafood, peanut butter and even flour.

Analyzing 2023 major food recalls as listed on the websites of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, undeclared allergens and other ingredients like nuts, soy or dairy were the most common reason why food products were recalled in the U.S., followed by listeria, failure to meet safety or import inspection requirements and salmonella. The latter reason caused 20 recalls or around 6 percent of all listed.

Salmonella is the foodborne pathogen causing the highest estimated number of hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. every year at around 19,000 and 380, respectively. It causes around 1 million cases of illness in the country each year, second among foodborne diseases only to the less dangerous norovirus. While salmonella is the most common cause of serious food poising, it is not the most deadly at a death rate of just 0.5 percent and a rate of hospitalization of 27.2 percent. This is surpassed by the less common listeria bacteria, which leads to hospitalization in almost all cases and to death in around 16 percent of them, as well as E.coli variety STEC 0157, which lands infected people in the hospital in around half of cases while being as deadly as salmonella.