Call Today   |   888.828.7087

Posted by: OFT Food Safety & Injury Lawyers

Every Wednesday afternoon, the FDA updates its Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation (CORE) investigation table of known foodborne-illness outbreaks. Typically, there is no update, and sometimes months go by without any new outbreaks being announced.

Today, however, the FDA announced three new outbreaks:

What explains this unusual occurrence? One possibility is that the waning COVID-19 epidemic is allowing state and local public health departments to focus more of their attention on investigating foodborne-illness outbreaks. For the past year, public health departments have been overwhelmed trying to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, which has likely left some food poisoning outbreaks unnoticed or unsolved. If so, today’s update could be a harbinger of things to come.

Notable Recoveries

$10 million

Seven infants were sickened after consuming a contaminated food product marketed to infants

$6.5 million

Verdict on behalf of a little boy who contracted a severe Salmonella infection from chicken

$7.55 million

Verdict on behalf of a little girl who contracted E. coli at a petting zoo

$2.25 million

E. coli infections contracted from a major fast food chain

$45 million

An over-the-counter medication caused severe kidney damage to multiple users

$3.4 million

A pregnant woman contracted a Listeria infection from contaminated fruit and passed the infection to her child

$3 million

Multistate Cyclospora outbreaks

$275,000

A couple contracted Salmonella from a restaurant

$525,000

A pedestrian was struck by a left-turning car, fracturing her tibia

$700,000

A semi-truck rear-ended a motorcyclist causing a collapsed lung, rib fractures and road rash