Missing details of National Steak and Poultry’s Christmas Eve recall of 124 tons of beef and the associated outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 are slowly coming out from a variety of sources.  

Someone at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave Phyllis Entis at efoodalert.blogspot.com the list of all 16 states involved in the outbreak that is now associated with the recall of blade-tenderized steaks.

On Christmas Eve, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said six states were involved:  Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota, Michigan and Washington State.

FSIS somehow managed to lose ten states that are also involved in the outbreak.  The missing ten are: California, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah.

The ten states, missing for almost two weeks, were apparently lost somewhere between CDC and FSIS.

Also no longer among the missing is the name of the fifth national restaurant chain involved in the recall.  That distinction goes to the 1,500-restaurant Applebee’s chain, which made it through the worst of the recall by not answering any media calls.  It was, however, outed Wednesday by Nation’s Restaurant News.

The others involved are Olive Garden,  Moe’s Southwest Grill, Carino’s Italian and 54th Street Grill & Bar.

According to the CDC report, 21 people were infected with the outbreak strain of E coli O157:H7 in the 16 states.

The number of ill persons who were identified resides in each state as follows: CA (1), CO (1), FL (1), HI (1), IA (1), IN (1), KS (1), MI (1), MN (3), NV (1), OH (2), OK (1), SD (2), TN (1), UT (2), and WA (1).

Known illness onset dates range from October 3, 2009 through December 14, 2009. Most patients became ill between mid-October and late November.

Patients range in age from 14 to 87 years and the median age of patients is 34 years, which means half are younger than 34 years. Forty-three percent of patients are females.

There have been 9 reported hospitalizations, 1 case of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and no deaths associated with the E. coli outbreak.