Romaine Lettuce Recall- Take Action Now! Posted by Tim at 07/21/09 04:53 PM

Today a recall was issued on romaine lettuce, a couple of weeks ago it was Tollhouse cookies, just a couple of months ago children were getting extremely ill and the elderly were dying from contaminated peanut butter.

Enough is enough!

Help get the Food Safety Enhancement Act to the House floor for a vote in the next two weeks. Now is a critical time to take action for food safety. If you have already taken our online action email, write, send a carrier pigeon, or better yet call your representative and let them know that you support safe food and the passage of the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.

Here is the ad our coalition is running in DC starting tomorrow.

To see the full PDF ad Download PDF click here.

comments (2)

1 Posted by Blake at 07/22/09 04:40 PM

I called my grocery story (HEB) to check and see if the romaine lettuce I ate last night is part of the recall. The person I spoke with hadn't heard about this. I was transferred to the produce manager who claimed her cell phone was connected to a national recall center and she gets message within the hour of recalls. She hadn't heard about this either. The press release from the the producer of the tainted romaine lettuce went out on July 21st and says that the lettuce was sold to outlets in Texas. I'm hoping they didn't buy the tainted lettuce or will quickly get the sorted out.

Scary stuff.

2 Posted by Mary Jo at 08/21/09 11:42 PM

DON'T EAT THE LETTUCE!!! Keep it refrigerated until you know whether or not it made you sick. If I had only kept the bag of Romaine lettuce that made my daughter sick, someone could have tested the lettuce and linked it to my daughter having contracted a parasite. It would have been clear what was the culprit and this Salinas prepackaged 2 lb bag of Romaine lettuce would have been off the shelves by now. Here's my story: In September of 2007, My seven-year-old daughter suddenly started bleeding rectally a few days after eating pre-packaged Romaine lettuce purchased from a large chain grocery store in the Bay Area. The lettuce was from a major producer in Salinas, CA. I have the numbers from the package and a case number with the company that's been closed since this major lettuce producer says the parasite she has isn't considered pathogenic. The pediatrician from a major hospital in Santa Clara County ordered stool samples and referred us to her husband, affliated at the same hospital, who was a pediatric GI. The stool samples were lost at the big-named laboratory. Once they were recovered, Charcot Leyden Crystals were found in her stool samples. New stool samples found that my daughter had Blastocystis Hominis. We never left the country. Where did this parasite come from? FDA was at my house in November 2007. The FDA representative got transferred. The new representative told me I had to write the Freedom of Information Office for records of the investigation. Freedom of Information mailed me back the emails I had sent them without any new information. I was told FDA couldn't find any records of the investigation that I initiated in Fall of 2007. I was told to write Freedom of Information again for the public version of the report from the last plant inspection of this Salinas producer. Apparently, the Salinas grower was inspected in May of this year. Meanwhile, CDC referred me to the Public Health Department. Public Health says sudden rectal bleeding and Blastocystis Hominis aren't reportable conditions. Public Health doesn't have the resources to call the pediatric GIs (There's not very many, but it's not their daughter is it.) in our area and ask them about cases of sudden rectal bleeding and follow up with those patients as to what they had eaten (after all colitis and protitis are a condition of the digestive track and blastocystis hominis is from fecal oral contact of contaminated food or water). I have the transaction record from the major grocery store that we did in fact buy the product right before my daughter got sick. There were so many errors, including her pediatrician not reading the lab results, the lab (under California law) not being able to give me my daughter's lab results, the lab losing five stool samples, etc. I'm appalled. We live in a middle class neighborhood in the Bay Area, shop at a major chain store (in fact, what's stirring this up again for me this week is I was in the store watching an employee stock more of this product on the shelf and couldn't believe this major brand pre-packaged Salinas lettuce is still being sold.) All I can tell you, Blake, is DON'T EAT THE LETTUCE!!! I'd hate to have you end up with 2 colonoscopies, 1 endoscopy, 2 ultrasounds, 3 days hospitalization, 1 barium enema with three different major hospitals from San Jose to San Francisco. I'm trying to tell the story so that nobody else goes through this. My daughter is now on a restricted diet, but is otherwise healthy. I'm fearful of feeding her raw food. You won't find Romaine lettuce in my house ever again.