SACRAMENTO – Dr. Ron Chapman, state public health officer and director of California Department of Public Health (CDPH), on Friday warned people not to eat certain bagged salads manufactured by River Ranch Fresh Foods LLC because they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.
To date, no illnesses have been reported.
River Ranch Fresh Foods LLC of Salinas, Calif., initiated the voluntary recall of bagged salads after routine sampling detected Listeria monocytogenes in two packages of shredded iceberg lettuce purchased from retail locations in California and Colorado.
The recalled salad products were distributed nationwide to retail and food service outlets under various sizes and packaged under the brand names of River Ranch, Farm Stand, Hy-Vee, Marketside, Shurfresh, The Farmer’s Market, Cross Valley, Fresh n Easy, Promark and Sysco.
A complete list of recalled products, associated lot codes, and use by dates can be found here.
While the bagged salads identified above are no longer being sold, CDPH is concerned that consumers may still have some of the recalled products in their homes. Consumers in possession of this recalled lettuce should discard it or return it to the store of purchase for a refund.
Symptoms of Listeria infection may include high fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Infants, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are at highest risk for severe illness and death.
Listeria infection in pregnant women can lead to miscarriage or stillbirth, premature delivery, or infection of the newborn baby. For additional information on Listeriosis, visit http://www.cdc.gov/listeria/index.html .
CDPH recommends consumers experiencing any ill effects after consuming these products should consult their health care provider.
Consumers who observe the product being offered for sale are encouraged to report the activity to the CDPH toll free complaint line at 800-495-3232.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – St. Helena Hospital Clearlake is improving the quality, safety and affordability of health care for the patients it serves as a participant in the Partnership for Patients initiative.
Partnership for Patients, established by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center), offers support to physicians, nurses and other clinicians working in and out of hospitals.
The goal is to keep patients from getting injured or sicker while in the hospital so they can heal without complications.
Specifically, participants focus on reducing preventable readmissions to hospitals by 20 percent and reducing preventable hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent by the end of 2013.
In doing so, CMS estimates the partnership has the potential to, over the next three years, save 60,000 lives, reduce millions of preventable injuries and complications in patient care and save as much as $35 billion, including up to $10 billion in savings to Medicare.
“Safety is the foundation of our promise to patients,” said Nia Lendaris, vice president for patient care of St. Helena Hospital. “We are routinely seeking to implement measures that improve quality and help patients transition safely to their homes.”
St. Helena Hospital Clearlake has joined with the Premier health care alliance to participate in the initiative.
Premier, a health system-owned performance improvement alliance of hospitals and other health care organizations, is the second largest of 26 Hospital Engagement Networks (HEN) approved by CMS to participate in the initiative.
As a HEN, Premier is helping identify the solutions already working to reduce health care-acquired conditions, and spread them to other hospitals and health care providers.
St. Helena Hospital Clearlake joins more than 540 hospitals nationwide in Premier’s HEN and will benefit from Premier’s intensive training and education programs to make patient care safer, technical assistance to achieve quality measurement goals, online repository of safety literature and implementation strategies, national and regional best practice sharing forums, and data benchmarking and tracking to measures progress in meeting quality improvement goals.
In total, Partnership for Patients consists of more than 6,500 partners, including hospitals, physicians, nurses and patient advocates.
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced a series of prevention-based policy measures that will better protect consumers from foodborne illness in meat and poultry products.
These measures will significantly improve the ability of both plants and USDA to trace contaminated food materials in the supply chain, to act against contaminated products sooner, and to establish the effectiveness of food safety systems.
“The additional safeguards we are announcing today will improve our ability to prevent foodborne illness by strengthening our food safety infrastructure,” said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen “Together, these measures will provide us with more tools to protect our food supply, resulting in stronger public health protections for consumers.”
The policy measures include the following.
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) intends to implement new traceback measures in order to control pathogens earlier and prevent them from triggering foodborne illnesses and outbreaks. FSIS is proposing to launch traceback investigations earlier and identify additional potentially contaminated product when the Agency finds E. coli O157:H7 through its routine sampling program.
When FSIS receives an indication of contamination through presumptive positive test results for E. coli, the Agency will move quickly to identify the supplier of the product and any processors who received contaminated product from the supplier, once confirmation is received. This proposed change in policy gives FSIS the opportunity to better prevent contaminated product from reaching consumers. Learn more about the traceback proposed change in policy.
FSIS is implementing three provisions included in the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (the 2008 Farm Bill).
The new regulations, published as a Final Rule and directed by Congress, require establishments to prepare and maintain recall procedures, to notify FSIS within 24 hours that a meat or poultry product that could harm consumers has been shipped into commerce, and to document each reassessment of their hazard control and critical control point (HACCP) system food safety plans. Learn more about the Farm Bill provisions.
FSIS is announcing the availability of guidance to plants on the steps that are necessary to establish that their HACCP food safety systems will work as designed to control the food safety hazards that they confront.
This process, called “validation,” enables companies to ensure that their food safety systems are effective for preventing foodborne illness. This notice announces that the draft guidance document is available for comment. Learn more about HACCP validation draft guidance.
In the past two years, FSIS has announced several measures to safeguard the food supply, prevent foodborne illness, and improve consumers' knowledge about the food they eat.
These initiatives support the three core principles developed by the President’s Food Safety Working Group: prioritizing prevention; strengthening surveillance and enforcement; and improving response and recovery.
Some of these actions include:
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A 'Fruit and Veggie Fest' will take place this week as part of an effort to promote healthier eating.
The festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 5, at Foods, Etc., 15290 Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake.
The Network for a Healthy California’s Fruit and Veggie Fest is a month-long promotion to encourage Californians to make every day delicious with the flavors of fruits and vegetables.
In partnership with the network, retailers across the state will join in the annual celebration and host Fruit and Veggie Fest events to inspire shoppers with healthy tips and recipes that include plenty of fresh, frozen, dried and canned produce.
From corner stores to supermarket chains, retail partnerships and in-store activities like Fruit and Veggie Fest are critical in the battle against the obesity epidemic, particularly among low-income Californians who are at greater risk.
Surveys show that retail promotions can have a positive impact on how shoppers spend their food dollars and CalFresh benefits.
Through Fruit and Veggie Fest in-store activities at Foods Etc. shoppers can taste and sample nutritious and delicious recipes from the network’s new “Flavors of My Kitchen” cookbook, which features healthy twists on traditional Latino dishes as well as many new culturally-inspired meals.
Shoppers can pick up a free cookbook or it can be downloaded on the network’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/networkforahealthycalifornia .