On August 13, 2015, following an exhaustive trace-back investigation by the Washington State Department of Health (DOH), Public Health of Seattle & King County (PHSKC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS), Kapowsin Meats voluntarily recalled about 116,262 lbs. of whole hog due to contamination with Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:-. Kapowsin meats had been identified as the likely source of the Salmonella outbreak affecting many dozens of individuals and centered in Washington State. As part of the investigation, health inspectors (including investigators from the USDA-FSIS) inspected Kapowsin Meats facilities and conducted intensified sampling. The intensified sampling revealed the presence of Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- and Salmonella Infantis in whole hogs, in samples of the associated pork products, and on surfaces throughout the facility. As a result, on August 27, 2015 Kapowsin Meats ceased all operations and expanded the recall to include 523,380 pounds of pork products due to further fear they could be contaminated with Salmonella. The product had been sold to individuals, retail establishments and distributors in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington states.
Public health investigators threafter employed PulseNet, the national subtyping network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories, to identify the victims (through blood and stool cultures) sharing the same pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) as the outbreak strains identified by USDA-FSIS intensified sampling – in all, a total of 6 DNA fingerprints (outbreak strains) were included in the outbreak investigation after WGS performed an analysis of the clinical isolates from other victims and made the determination that the isolates were sufficiently genetically related to constitute part of the same outbreak. Each of these isolates matched samples found on the premises of Kapowsin Meats during the inspection.
As of December 2, 2015, a total of 192 victims had been identified with either Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- (188) or Salmonella Infantis (4) in the five affected states, including Alaska (1), California (2), Idaho (2), Oregon (3), and Washington (184), and included at least 30 who were hospitalized. In addition, and adding to the likelihood of hospitalization, according to the CDC’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) laboratory all 10 of the isolates analyzed were multidrug resistant to common antibiotics, including ampicillin, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline.
Ron Simon, the national food poisoning lawyer who has represented thousands of victims in food poisoning cases, is representing many of the victims in the Kapowsin Meats Salmonella Outbreak. To speak to a food safety lawyer, call 1-888-335-4901.
