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Meat Products From Athol Recalled Due To E.Coli Outbreak

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An outbreak of E.coli has infected seven people, sending five of them to the hospital, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The outbreak happened across Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and West Virginia. It was reportedly caused by the bacteria from beef products from Adams Farm Slaughterhouse in Athol, Massachusetts. The slaughterhouse is now recalling beef, veal and bison products.

The meat products were shipped to retail outlets, farmer’s markets and restaurants across the country including eastern New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, the CDC confirmed in a statement. The illnesses happened from June 27 to September 4, and the inspection dates on the packages spanned from July to August.

Officials from Adams Farm said they had moved quickly to comply with the Department of Agriculture, which initially reported the outbreak on their government website, the Boston Globe reports.

Ed Maltby, general manager of the slaughterhouse, said,

We became aware of the problem on Friday afternoon. We’ve been working with the USDA to try and narrow down the cause of the contamination.

Maltby added that they are doing everything they can to prevent any more contamination.

The company thinks the meat with E.coli may be traced back to a few days in August during an intense heat wave when the farm might not have been able to compensate for the heat. They have pinpointed two days during meat production when the contamination might have taken place, and were surprised by the size of the USDA recall. Whole carcasses and products like ground beef and veal forming from “about two months of production” were pulled from shelves.

Maltby mentioned that the company has likewise been reaching out to its customers in the past 24 hours, and intend to notify them via mail to make sure the incident is not a reflection on the company as a whole, and that Adams Farms stands by all of them.

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