Extra: Egg recall updates, food safety facts at your fingertips
The Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) is reminding residents that eggs produced on Michigan poultry farms are not part of the national egg recall. The recall, because of possible salmonella contamination, is limited to eggs imported into Michigan from two Iowa farms.
News updates and links to additional resources for consumers can be found on the MDA Web site.
Helpful information and resources can also be found on the American Egg Board's newly established online Egg Safety Center. The Egg Safety Center features alerts and is packed with facts for consumers, retailers and food service establishments, farmers and media.
The newest American Egg Board alert on Aug. 26 indicated that less than 1 percent of all U.S. eggs are impacted by the recall.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) is also reminding consumers that salmonella is inherent in poultry and eggs because it's a naturally occurring bacteria, but that incidences of salmonella today are much less than they were "50, even 10 to 15 years ago" thanks, in part, to more sensitive food safety tests. Hear AFBF's full radio report and read the transcript at What's the Deal with Salmonella?
An article for the agricultural trade magazine Feedstuffs, "Cage-housing tie to egg recall shorts truth," includes a statement from Jeff Armstrong, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Michigan State University, stating that "the science is unclear regarding how and if production systems affect on-farm salmonella infections."
The article quotes Armstrong, saying that based on a summary of scientific literature from around the world, any party that maintains that there is a higher prevalence of salmonella in eggs produced in cage housing is in "absolute disagreement with leading scientific experts."
Contact: Ernie Birchmeier, Michigan Farm Bureau livestock and dairy specialist, (800) 292-2680, ext. 2024
