Restaurants and wholesalers are pulling romaine lettuce from their supplies in Maryland and 22 other states after an outbreak of what appears to be E.coli sickened at least 19 people, three of them critically.
The Food and Drug Administration is investigating a farm in Arizona as the source of the tainted lettuce, the AP reports. The illnesses took place in Michigan, Ohio and New York.
The romaine lettuce comes from Freshway Foods, in Sydney Ohio, sold under the Freshway and Imperial Sysco brands in Maryland and other states. Here's a full list of the places affected and an explanation from Freshway.
The company points out the recall affects lettuce in grocery store salad bars, restaurants, wholesalers and delis. It doesn't make the pre-packaged kind you can buy at the grocery store.
Here's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention take on investigations of the outbreak in New York, Michigan and Ohio. And here are some more details from the FDA.
The recall is just the latest example of the need for greater oversight and safety controls when it comes to food, according to a pair of reports to Congress, this San Francisco Chronicle story explains.
The Government Accountability Office and the Office of Inspector General called for increasing the FDA's authority to issue recalls and require food facilities to enact more safety controls, the story explains.