There is some tainted turkey making the rounds, as more than 75 people in at least 26 states have gotten salmonella poisoning from chowing down on the ground-up gobbler. And according to the Centers for Disease Control, which has yet to ID the source of the foul fowl, at least one person has died.
The illnesses date back to March, and the CDC said Monday that cultures of ground turkey from four retail locations between March 7 and June 27 showed salmonella contamination. The agency said preliminary information showed that three of the samples have been linked to the same production establishment but did not name the retailers or the manufacturers.
The CDC says Michigan and Ohio each have 10 folks that fell ill from salmonella. Texas has, Illinois has seven, California six and Pennsylvania five.
These states each had anywhere from one to three cases: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
The Dept. of Agriculture has released an alert about the illnesses, reminding consumers that they can often avoid salmonella poisoning by cooking the ground turkey to a proper temperature of 165 degrees.