Salmonella Tennessee has sickened two Marylanders.
The multistate outbreak of infections caused by the salmonella Tennessee bacteria has been linked to two brands of peanut butter packaged in a Georgia factory and has sickened 329 people in 41 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Unfortunately, there is little the average consumer can do to protect against salmonella in a product like peanut butter, said Mark Kantor, associate professor in the Nutrition and Food Science Department at University of Maryland.
“Once it’s in the jar, you can’t really get rid of it. It’s not as if you can wash it off, or cook it out,” he said.
“I guess if you’re making peanut butter cookies, the heat would cook it out. But most people are probably opening a jar of peanut butter and spreading it on a piece of bread.”
The FDA issued an updated warning Wednesday that consumers should avoid Great Value peanut butter with the product code beginning with 2111, purchased since May 2006. The FDA previously cautioned against eating any Peter Pan peanut butter purchased since May 2006. In addition to the two people in Maryland, Virginia has reported 23 occurrences, and Pennsylvania has reported 25 cases, according to the CDC.
No one has died so far, but 21 percent of the cases positively identified by the CDC as salmonella Tennessee have been hospitalized.
“Fortunately, salmonella is usually not a life-threatening problem. Typically the symptoms aren’t going to be that severe, and it will go away in a few days,” Kantor said.
The disease is more commonly associated with meat and milk, rather than peanut butter, he said.
Great Value peanut butter with the 2111 product code is produced in the same Georgia plant as Peter Pan peanut butter. None of the Great Value peanut butter has been linked with the outbreak, but the FDA still recommended consumers avoid eating it. The FDA did determine that all Great Value peanut butter manufactured in other plants does not contain salmonella Tennessee.
