On Nov. 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned the American public of a multi-state outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 linked to romaine lettuce and advised against eating any romaine lettuce on the market at that time. The FDA then worked quickly with romaine producers and distributors who voluntarily withdrew the product from the market to help contain this new outbreak. This was an especially important step in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday. At the same time, we immediately launched a broad traceback investigation to determine the source of this outbreak.
We have new results to report from this investigation tracing the source of the contamination to at least one specific farm. Based on these and other new findings, we’re updating our recommendations for the romaine lettuce industry and consumers.
Shortly after our initial public warning, our traceback investigation was able to narrow down the scope of implicated product. Based on these initial findings, we immediately issued an updated public warning to consumers to avoid consuming romaine lettuce specifically from Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties in California. This information about the implicated regions helped consumers avoid potentially affected product. The information was provided in conjunction with a voluntary agreement that we reached with industry to provide more specific labeling information on the origin and harvest date of romaine lettuce as it was shipped to the market.
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