Oregon Public Broadcasting

Back in September, Oregon had the first documented case of salmonella related to the contaminated peanut and peanut butter products from  the Peanut Corporation of America. 

The outbreak has since sickened hundreds of people across the country. It's also blamed for at least eight deaths. 

Pete Springer reports on the local public health response to the outbreak.

Dr. Bill Keene works as an epidemiologist for the Oregon Health Division.

He says it can take a while for health officials to realize there’s a disease outbreak, especially with something as common as salmonella.

Keene says there are hundreds of confirmed cases  in the state each year and probably thousands more that aren’t reported.

Bill Keene “This is not an infection, salmonella, that usually causes severe illness or death in people who are otherwise in good health.  It could happen but it would be very rare.  Most of the people who die from this have underlying illness.”

Once federal officials determined the cause of this latest salmonella outbreak, they recalled hundreds of peanut butter products.

Bill Keene “But the recall does not exactly mirror the risk to consumers.  The risk to consumers, as far as we know, is really concentrated in product that was being consumed in September, October, November and up ‘til the start of all this publicity.”

Keene says it’s relatively easy to get the bigger supermarkets to remove recalled products from their shelves. But getting to individuals is another matter.

Salmonella can survive for years in food products that may still be in the cupboards of consumers.

Bill Keene “Yeah, the crackers would get stale long before the salmonella would lose interest in you.”

Keene says about 15 years ago, there was another national salmonella outbreak.  That one was linked to Schwan’s ice cream and sickened about 224,000 Americans.

The contaminated ice cream had been sold through mail order though, so Schwan’s was able to notify customers directly.

But Keene says when health officials followed up with those customers, they found many of them still had the contaminated ice cream in their freezers.

And that’s where consumer responsibility comes in, says David Ernst. 

He’s a food litigation attorney based in Portland.

David Ernst “So there’s a balance but companies have to take any action they can that errs on the side of safety of the consumer.”

Ernst defends companies that have produced or served contaminated food.

David Ernst “If you as a producer of a product, sell a defective product, and a food that’s contaminated would be a defective product, then you’re going to be responsible under the eyes -- and the law varies a bit in our 50 states -- but as a general proposition, that’s going to be the case.”

But Ernst says it’s important to let the government finish its investigation. That's the only way to find out if all the people who've  gotten sick are actually related to the current salmonella outbreak.  

That investigation is underway.

The Food and Drug Administration is working with the U.S. Justice Department to explore  civil or criminal charges against the Peanut Corporation of America.

Meanwhile, the FDA website is updated almost daily with new recalls related to the outbreak.

At last count, the list numbered about a thousand.