MSU cautions by pulling peanut butter from campus

An important part of Rosetta Sloan’s diet has disappeared from MSU cafeterias.

Sloan, who avoids eating meat when possible, is searching for other sources of protein this week after the university pulled peanut butter products in precaution of a nationwide salmonella outbreak.

“I’m angry the cafeterias don’t have any peanut butter,” said Sloan, an art history and visual culture and Spanish sophomore. “I wasn’t concerned about salmonella poisoning before, but because of all the cases last semester and this, it seems to happen a lot.”

A salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 500 people prompted MSU to indefinitely remove all peanut butter products from cafeterias, vending machines and Sparty’s Convenience Stores. Those products, which were removed beginning Sunday, include all items that contain peanut butter, are made with peanut sauces or use peanut flavorings and additives.

There have been no reports of cases involving students, but Ingham County health officials said Wednesday the outbreak may have reached the area this week. Two salmonella cases were confirmed by the Ingham County Health Department on Wednesday, but officials will not know until Friday whether the cases are caused by tainted peanut butter.

The name, age and residence of the two infected persons were not released.

The Ingham County Health Department fields about 30 salmonella cases unrelated to a food outbreak each year, so it will not be known whether the peanut butter caused the two recent cases until lab tests reveal whether the strains are connected, said Marcus Cheatham, an assistant deputy health officer for the department.

Cheatham said both individuals were being interviewed Wednesday to determine if peanut butter was a possible cause.

“Both had other potential sources of salmonella, so everything is very tentative right now,” Cheatham said.

Cheatham said it would be “rare” to receive and confirm two salmonella cases on the same day, but added “statistically, it’s going to happen sometime, so we can’t infer anything from that fact.”

“We’re not telling people we have a health crisis,” Cheatham said. “On the other hand, salmonella is a really bad disease. A quarter of the people that we know about that have salmonella have been hospitalized.”

Bruce Haskell, associate director of MSU Dining Services, said the university removed the peanut butter products after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s nationwide warning about peanut butter-related products.

“We do this all as a precaution, like we have done with beef and lettuce and tomatoes before,” Haskell said.

As of Tuesday night, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 486 cases of salmonella traced to peanut butter, 25 of which were reported in Michigan.

The tainted peanut butter has been traced to a Georgia-based peanut corporation no longer producing peanut butter products.

Haskell said there are no immediate plans to switch to a different peanut butter distributor.

Staff writer Mallory McKnight contributed to this report.