For the past three months or so, the FDA and the CDC have been working to find the source of an outbreak of salmonella typhimurium that has sickened at least 400 people nationwide. Now the Minnesota Department of Health thinks they may have found the answer in a jar of institutional peanut butter not sold to the public.

The Minnesota Department of Health said Friday that a tub of the peanut butter from a nursing home that had patients ill with the national outbreak strain had tested positive for generic salmonella, says the health department’s Doug Schultz.

“We’ve have 30 illnesses in Minnesota that are connected to the outbreak strain, and all of those 30 report eating some type of peanut butter, and many if not most of them have been connected to this King Nut brand,” Schultz says.

The FDA says that the tests needed to confirm the strain of salmonella are not yet complete — and stressed that there is no conclusive evidence that links this peanut butter to the salmonella outbreak.

Again, the peanut butter isn’t sold to the general public, so there’s no need to toss out your peanut butter.

Tub of peanut butter checked for link to salmonella outbreak [USAToday]
(Photo:CDC)

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