WASHINGTON — There may be more recalls of eggs in the salmonella outbreak, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Monday.
“We may see some additional sort of sub-recalls over the next couple of days, maybe even weeks, as we better understand the network of distribution of these eggs that are contaminated,” Hamburg told NBC’s TODAY show.
She advised consumers to check out the FDA website, foodsafety.gov to ensure that any eggs they purchased are not among the contaminated batches.
As for the cause, Hamburg told said that officials will aggressive investigate the problem to determine the exact source of the salmonella outbreak that has sickened as many as 1,300 people and forced the recall of more than a half-billion eggs.
At the same time, she said Congress should pass pending legislation that would provide her agency with greater enforcement power, including new authority over imported food. “We need additional resources, we need additional authority, we need greater ability to trace back products to their source so that we can identify how the contamination occurred and what products are at risk,” she said on TODAY.
Two Iowa farms linked to the disease outbreak — Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms — share suppliers of chickens and feed as well as ties to an Iowa business with a history of violating state and federal law.
The number of illnesses, which can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems, is expected to increase. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever eight to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product.
