Peanut Butter Recalled as Salmonella Search...(safety of those who use our products is ...),Health

King Nut customers are asked to take all King Nut peanut butter and Parnell's Pride peanut butter out of distribution immediately.

Peanut Corporation of America issued its own statement on its Web site late Saturday, confirming "the salmonella was found in an open container of King Nut peanut butter at a nursing facility" in Minnesota.

The statement added, however, that the finding "leaves open the possibility of cross-contamination from another source. PCA is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies to determine whether the current illness outbreak could be at all related to products made in the PCA facility."

The recall and the potential link to the multi-state outbreak come two years after ConAgra recalled its Peter Pan brand peanut butter, which had been linked to at least 625 salmonella cases in 47 states.

U.S. health officials had formed a task force last week to seek the source of the latest outbreak, which began last fall and so far has sickened 399 Americans, according to the latest numbers issued Friday by the CDC.

The strain of salmonella has been identified as Salmonella Typhimurium, the most common of the more than 2,500 types of salmonella bacteria in the United States. It's often found in uncooked eggs and meats, said officials with the CDC, who have been investigating the outbreak for several weeks.

"Cases are continuing to occur, and it is an ongoing investigation," Dr. Rajal Mody, a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, said earlier Friday. "The first people began getting ill in September, but it usually takes several weeks before enough cases have been reported to start noticing a possible outbreak."

Mody said he suspects a food item, possibly produce or a prepared packaged food.

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