Via The New York Times: Only Romaine Lettuce From Central and Northern California Is Unsafe, F.D.A. Says. Excerpt:
It’s O.K. to eat romaine lettuce again, federal health officials said on Monday — as long as you’re sure it wasn’t grown on California’s north and central coast.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said investigators had traced the romaine lettuce associated with an outbreak of E. coli that has sickened 65 people in 12 states and Canada to “end of summer” romaine lettuce harvested from that region.
With the growing and harvesting season over there, according to the F.D.A., people may eat romaine lettuce that has been hydroponically or greenhouse grown, or has been harvested from the winter growing desert regions of the United States, and is labeled such.
“If it does not have this information,” the agency said in a statement posted on its website, “you should not eat or use it.”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the F.D.A. commissioner, said that, to protect consumers, the industry had agreed to label romaine lettuce with the harvest date and region.
“The F.D.A. also has commitments from the romaine lettuce industry that such labeling will continue into the future and become standard for their products,” Dr. Gottlieb said. The labels may be extended to other leafy greens, he said.
