CHICAGO -- The worst outbreak of salmonella food poisoning in U.S. history may have been caused by a valve at a processing plant that allowed milk to become contaminated, health officials say.
State health workers said Tuesday they had pinpointed a valve that may have allowed tainted raw milk to mix with pasteurized milk at the Jewel Cos. Inc.'s Hillfarm dairy.
Dr. Bernard Turnock, acting Illinois Public Health Department director, and Inspector General Jeremy Margolis said an investigation determined a raw milk supply coming into the dairy probably carried salmonella.
Margolis said he believes the preliminary conclusion pointing to a 'cross-connection' valve linking supplies of raw and pasteurized milk at the Hillfarm dairy will 'continue to be supported by additional data.'
'You cannot have any connection between the raw and pasteurized side of a dairy,' Margolis said.
The valve was among 13 violations found by Food and Drug Administration investigators April 3 during a tour of the plant. The valve was closed that day, but investigators said it was reopened by April 8, the last day contaminated milk was discovered.
Also Tuesday, a Cook County judge found Jewel in violation of his order that it preserve milk suspected of being contaminated and that it keep a record of what happened to milk returned to its Melrose Park dairy.
Fredric Grossman, an attorney for Jewel, told Cook County Judge William Quinlan that samples of allegedly tainted milk were taken for testing to a Chicago Heights lab, which was under contract with Jewel, the state health department, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
But Lawrence Leck, an attorney for salmonella victims, said only two samples of milk suspected of being contaminated apparently remain, putting plaintiffs at a disadvantage in proving milk was the source of salmonella.
The judge said the firm had not gone far enough and did not complete a thorough milk audit, as he had ordered April 4.
Quinlan withheld any order against Jewel until another hearing June 18. He said the order would be aimed at speeding up salmonella litigation.
Quinlan also invited plaintiff attorneys to suggest possible sanctions.
Leck suggested that Quinlan prohibit Jewel from challenging claims that its milk caused the food poisoning epidemic.
A total of 16,113 cases of suspected salmonella poisoning have been reported to health officials in Illinois and five other Midwest states. Of those, 14,610 have been confirmed as salmonella.
The same strain of salmonella in the current outbreak was the cause of a more limited outbreak of the disease in August, the health department's task force report said. That outbreak also was linked to Hillfarm milk.
