Beef recall forces Topps to shut down
Topps Meat Co. on Oct 5th said it was closing its business, six days after it was forced to issue the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history. On Sept. 25 Topps began recalling frozen hamburger patties that may have been contaminated with the potentially fatal E. coli bacteria strain O157:H7. The recall eventually ballooned to 21.7 million pounds of ground beef. Thirty people in eight states had E. coli infections matching the strain found in the Topps patties, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. None have died. The Topps recall raised questions about whether the U.S. Agriculture Department should have acted quicker to encourage a recall. Topps conceded that much of the recalled meat had already been eaten, and on Friday expressed regret that its product had been linked to illnesses. The CDC reported the number of linked cases in these states: Connecticut, 2; Florida, 1; Indiana, 1; Maine, 1; New Jersey, 7; New York, 9; Ohio, 1; and Pennsylvania, 8.
