Questioning the Safety of Turkey, Right Before Thanksgiving
While most of the millions of products that consumers use, consume and come into contact with on a daily basis are deemed to be safe, there are always some dangerous ones lurking among the rest. These unsafe products are found in a wide sector of industries from food, children’s toys, cleaning supplies, baby products, car parts, tools, clothing, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and more, and can pose all types of threats and different degrees of risk to consumers. They may pose a choking hazard, contain harmful bacteria or chemicals, or break or malfunction with use.
Right in time for Thanksgiving, the Centers for Disease Control announced a Salmonella outbreak that was traced back to a variety of raw turkey meat such as ground meat, patties, whole birds and even pet food. The contaminated products were sold by several different manufacturers across the country. This particular outbreak has so far has left a reported 164 people in 35 states sick, and one person has died.
People with Salmonella may develop mildly irksome symptoms that go away on their own, to more severe symptoms that require hospitalization, to life-threatening ones and even death. Common symptoms include diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps 12 hours to three days after initial exposure to the bacteria.
Luckily, when it comes to celebrating Thanksgiving this year, consumers won’t have to make do without a traditional turkey on the table. According to the CDC recommendations, consumers can keep on eating turkey as long as they follow food safety procedures including washing hands thoroughly after touching raw meat and before any food preparation, thawing the meat in the fridge, cooking raw meat until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, and washing any utensils and the like that come in contact with raw meat, among other recommendations. Of course, consumers should always avoid eating raw meat and should not give pets raw meat to eat either.
The revelation of contaminated and unsafe products are not uncommon. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission approximately 30 million people are injured or killed every year from unsafe products. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) alone recalls over 400 items each year. Recently, salmonella outbreaks have been linked to other popular products, including Duncan Hines cake mixes.
While there are inspections and public recalls to get dangerous products off the shelves, the recalls are often voluntary, and not all companies comply. However, “when companies know that their actions could result in them being sued for large sums of money in product liability lawsuits that could permanently damage their reputations and their businesses as a whole, they are more apt to follow safety regulations, perform more detailed inspections and tests, and promptly remove dangerous products from the market,” explains Gassman Legal, P.C.