Meat packer expands beef recall to 12M pounds over Salmonella outbreak

Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Beef recalls issued earlier this year have been expanded to cover more than 12 million pounds of meat that could possibly be contaminated with Salmonella, federal officials said.

For the third time since Oct. 4, beef from packer JBS Tolleson has been associated with a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened 250 people. Before Tuesday, about 7 million pounds had been recalled.

"The scope of this recall expansion now includes an additional 5,156,076 pounds of raw beef products, which were produced and packed from July 26, 2018 to Sept. 7, 2018," the Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement. "FSIS is concerned that some product may be frozen and in consumers' freezers. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase."

Products subject to recall will have "EST. 267" inside the USDA inspection mark.

The majority of the outbreak occurred in August and September and then tapered off in October, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said. It often takes two to four weeks for symptoms like diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever to show.

Food contaminated with Salmonella bacteria usually looks, smells and tastes fine and won't appear spoiled. Not all who eat infected meat will get sick, but they can pass the infection on to others.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a virtual assistant called Ask Karen that can answer many of the questions about food safety.