Feds Finger Feed and Barns in Salmonella Outbreak

Federal investigators are scrambling to figure out the source of the salmonella that's sickened nearly 1,500 people since May. Yesterday, they cracked the egg case — well, sort of. Investigators discovered salmonella in the chicken feed and barns at Wright County Egg, one of the two egg producers responsible for churning out the offending ovas. The salmonella they found at the factory farm matches the strains found in contaminated eggs.

In addition to finding the bacteria in feed at Wright County Egg and Hillendale Farms, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigators uncovered salmonella in the bone meal Wright County Egg uses to make its chicken feed. What's still unclear, though, is how this salmonella got into chickens' food in the first place.

Naturally, Wright County Egg suggested that the feed may have come from the supplier already-tainted, according to the New York Times. But investigators say salmonella could have made its way into the feed as the result of unsanitary conditions at the egg production site. For example, rodents or workers with dirty hands could be the culprits. It's still too early to tell how, exactly, the salmonella got into chickens' vittles, but just pinpointing the feed and barns is an encouraging development in the case.

I've been following this outbreak closely because I'm crossing my fingers that the resolution could actually bring about some much-needed reforms in how America produces its eggs — and most foods, for that matter. In the dozens of topics cracked open throughout this egg scandal, here's the biggest take-away point: When it comes to protecting consumer health, factory farms just don't work. Ever.

Let's look at Wright County Egg: The producer cranks out 2.3 million eggs a week and keeps about 7.5 million hens locked up in battery cages. These hens spend their entire lives indoors in cramped conditions. Most birds sit practically on top of each other without enough room to even stretch their wings. The cruel conditions are enough to tug at anyone's heartstrings, but they're also completely unsanitary. When you've got millions of birds packed into a tight space with excrement, feed, rodents, and water floating around, contamination isn't just feasible — it's practically inevitable.

Wright County Egg took a lot of heat the past couple weeks, but the producer's hardly alone in these farming practices. America gets about 95 percent of its eggs from similar, massive operations. The fact that the salmonella outbreak impacted so many diners is pretty terrible. But what's exceedingly scarier is the realization that, if nothing changes in our agricultural system, an outbreak could easily happen again.

It's going to take a lot to really reform our agricultural system in a way that will protect consumers' health and the health of the environment. If you thought the "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" riddle is a mind-bender, try unpacking the quagmire that is America's food production. But one action that would be a big step forward in improving egg safety would be mandating that all hens be pastured, or cage-free. Studies indicate that cage-free hens operations have a lower prevalence of salmonella than caged birds. Some folks (like famed foodie Michael Pollan) even say that cage-free eggs taste better than their conventional counterparts. Sign our petition asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and FDA to ban egg producers from keeping hens in battery cages.

Photo credit: Ethelred via Wikimedia Commons