WASHINGTON — Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday there is no evidence a massive outbreak of salmonella in eggs has spread beyond two Iowa farms, though a team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused it.
FDA officials said they do not expect the number of eggs recalled — 550 million — to grow.
Dr. Jeff Farrar, the FDA’s associate commissioner for food protection, said 20 FDA investigators are at the farms, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, and could be there until next week. He said preliminary findings should be available this week.
Farrar said the chicks that came to the farms from a Minnesota hatchery appear to have been free of illness, so contamination most likely happened at the Iowa locations. The FDA is looking at eight sites on the farms where laying hens were reared as well as other locations, he said.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee said it is investigating the outbreak and sent letters to both farms asking for detailed information about company operations, communications with the government and what they knew and when.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D- Conn., head of the spending committee that oversees the Agriculture Department and the FDA, sent the two government agencies a letter asking what they knew.
The number of illnesses, which can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems, is expected to increase. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said there could be as many as 1,300 salmonella illnesses linked to the eggs.
It said that for every case reported, there could be 30 or more unreported cases.
