FDA Recalls Over 60 Tons of Ground Beef Potentially Contaminated With Hard-to-Spot E. Coli Variant

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that products from a New Jersey facility may have been contaminated with a rare form of E. coli bacteria.

A regular food safety inspection of Lakeside Refrigerated Services in Swedesboro, New Jersey, south of Philadelphia, found non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O103, a variant of the bacteria that most laboratories don’t test for, according to the FDA.

The beef products potentially exposed to the bacteria were produced between February 1 and April 8 of this year, together amounting to some 120,872 pounds of ground beef, or roughly 60 tons. The product codes and labels have been published on a US Department of Agriculture website and consumers are being urged to check their freezers for these products.

The FDA said there have not been any reported infections related to the meat. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), symptoms can begin between 2 and 8 days after consumption and commonly cause severe stomach cramps, often-bloody diarrhea, and vomiting. Fever is sometimes possible. Most infections are mild and people tend to recover in 5 to 7 days, but a more serious illness can occur, including about 5-10% of cases which develop Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, which damages the kidneys and can cause blood clotting. HUS carries a risk of death.

According to the CDC, E. coli causes about 265,000 infections each year in the US and about 100 deaths out of about 48 million total foodborne illnesses each year, which cause a total of 3,000 deaths.

The FDA release did not state what the E. coli variant sounded like.