Many of the recent outbreaks that have hit the U.S. have also hit its neighbor to the North, Canada. “The Canadian and U.S. markets are intertwined,” says Ron Simon, a national food poisoning layer who has represented thousands of salmonella victims in the last two decades. “This outbreak is just getting started,” says Simon, “berceuse the victims are just beginning to realize what made them sick. As soon as we receive the heath deportment records from the victims we represent, we will file a salmonella cantaloupe lawsuit to enable us to get the discovery we need to find out how this happened. Our goal, in addition to getting compensation for our clients for medical treatment, lost wages, and pain and suffering, is to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.”
The outbreak was first identified in Canada, where the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) identified Salmonella bacteria in a sample of Malichita brand cantaloupes. CFIA and Malichita issued a recall on November 1, 2023. Since then, FDA has identified illnesses in the U.S. that match the genetic markers as those linked to Malichita brand cantaloupes in Canada. Scientists have identified over 2500 strains of salmonella, and multiple sub-groups within each strain. When a match is found in PulsNet, the international registry of infectious diseases, epidemiologists know there is a common food source. In this situation, that common food was cantaloupes.
On November 8th, TrueFresh issued a recall of all Malichita brand cantaloupes sold in the U.S. That recall has since been expanded and, says Simon, “it is likely that the recall is not finished yet. As the FDA and CDC gather more and more information, they may find that more cantaloupes are potentially infected.”
The cantaloupes were sold between October 16 and October 23, 2023 in the states of Arizona, California. Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, and Florida, although they may have reached other states through retail produce markets. The forthcoming salmonella cantaloupe lawsuits would not be the fist to be filed in recent years. In fact, cantaloupe lawsuits have been filed in several salmonella and listeria cantaloupe outbreaks in recent memory.
