ATLANTA — Tests have confirmed that peanut butter made from peanuts processed at a Texas plant contains the same strain of salmonella blamed for sickening hundreds in a national outbreak, federal officials said Tuesday.
The test results offer new evidence that the outbreak attributed to a peanut plant in Georgia may have more than one origin. Both the Texas plant and the Georgia plant were operated by Peanut Corporation of America, which went bankrupt amid fallout from the outbreak, which may have caused nine deaths.
The outbreak has prompted one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history, and federal authorities launched a criminal probe into allegations the company knowingly shipped tainted food.
Meanwhile, federal inspectors are taking a closer look at Peanut Corp.’s plant in Virginia, where records obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that state inspectors repeatedly found health violations.
The link between the outbreak strain and the Texas plant surfaced after health officials in Colorado traced salmonella cases there to peanut butter sold by the Vitamin Cottage grocery chain.
The peanuts used in the Vitamin Cottage peanut butter came from Peanut Corp.’s plant in Plainview, Texas, the natural-foods chain has said.
As of Sunday, 666 people infected with salmonella had been reported from 45 states, including 17 from Colorado, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
