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In this article, cases of salmonella are traced to two specific brands of peanut butter both manufactured by the company ConAgra. The two brands are Peter Pan and WalMart's house brand, Great Value.
If you are concerned about your peanut butter, look for the product code, a series of numbers stamped on the lid. If the product code on your peanut butter begins with 2111, it was manufactured in the ConAgra plant associated with the problems. It may have a greater or lesser (or no) amount of salmonella in it.
Everyone is being urged to throw out any peanut butter made in this plant. I think this is a perfectly decent precaution, considering the cost of new peanut butter of another brand versus the cost of possible illness.
However, there is a great big common sense idea I'd like to present here.
If you do not feel at all ill, but you have eaten peanut butter of the appropriate product code sometime in the past, and are concerned, please use common sense to determine whether your concern is an emergency and whether you ought to be tying up emergency resources such as 911, the ER, or your doctor's emergency-line number.
My non-medical judgement, speaking as an adult who has accompanied friends and relatives to the ER for truly life-threatening conditions, is that I would like the good people who work in the medical and medical-support fields to be able to concentrate on emergencies and urgent situations, not sit around answering "what-if" questions from people who can't be bothered to go to the library, check the Internet, or use common sense and save their THEORETICAL questions for daylight hours when places are open and staffed to answer such questions.
I'm glad to see people who are curious about health, and who want to ask questions and learn, but calling emergency numbers-- the only numbers available at 3am-- does one of two things.
One alternative is that those who staff the emergency resources are forced to increase staffing to cope with extra call volume, which drives up the cost of providing such a service. This cost is passed on to all those who pay for it-- insurance companies, private citizens who need urgent medical care, and so on.
The second alternative is that no extra staffing is provided, and the available staff simply have to handle the extra workload. If they're already stretched to the limit (can you say "nursing shortage"? because there is one!) that means we're already perilously close to the "one more patient/call/interrupted bathroom or snack break means stupid mistakes will be made" line.
Random curiosity and the desire to learn are wonderful things, but they don't really have a place at 3AM.
If you are concerned about your peanut butter, look for the product code, a series of numbers stamped on the lid. If the product code on your peanut butter begins with 2111, it was manufactured in the ConAgra plant associated with the problems. It may have a greater or lesser (or no) amount of salmonella in it.
Everyone is being urged to throw out any peanut butter made in this plant. I think this is a perfectly decent precaution, considering the cost of new peanut butter of another brand versus the cost of possible illness.
However, there is a great big common sense idea I'd like to present here.
If you do not feel at all ill, but you have eaten peanut butter of the appropriate product code sometime in the past, and are concerned, please use common sense to determine whether your concern is an emergency and whether you ought to be tying up emergency resources such as 911, the ER, or your doctor's emergency-line number.
My non-medical judgement, speaking as an adult who has accompanied friends and relatives to the ER for truly life-threatening conditions, is that I would like the good people who work in the medical and medical-support fields to be able to concentrate on emergencies and urgent situations, not sit around answering "what-if" questions from people who can't be bothered to go to the library, check the Internet, or use common sense and save their THEORETICAL questions for daylight hours when places are open and staffed to answer such questions.
I'm glad to see people who are curious about health, and who want to ask questions and learn, but calling emergency numbers-- the only numbers available at 3am-- does one of two things.
One alternative is that those who staff the emergency resources are forced to increase staffing to cope with extra call volume, which drives up the cost of providing such a service. This cost is passed on to all those who pay for it-- insurance companies, private citizens who need urgent medical care, and so on.
The second alternative is that no extra staffing is provided, and the available staff simply have to handle the extra workload. If they're already stretched to the limit (can you say "nursing shortage"? because there is one!) that means we're already perilously close to the "one more patient/call/interrupted bathroom or snack break means stupid mistakes will be made" line.
Random curiosity and the desire to learn are wonderful things, but they don't really have a place at 3AM.
