The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that Wright County Egg may resume shipping shell eggs to consumers after a four-month ban related to the August recall of over half a billion shell eggs originating from Wright and Hillandale Farms.
The Salmonella enteritidis-focused recall caused an estimated 1,470 cases of illness. "During the outbreak, I said that the FDA would not agree to the sale of eggs to consumers from Wright County Egg until we had confidence that they could be shipped and consumed safely," said FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. "After four months of intensive work by the company and oversight, testing and inspections by the FDA, I am satisfied that time has come."
The company has taken several corrective measures to address issues that were discovered by the FDA in August. Chicken housing has been cleaned, sanitized and tested; contaminated pullets have been replaced with SE-negative pullets vaccinated against SE; the severe rodent problem has been eliminated and a monitoring system has been put in place; and feed supplies have been made safer through cleaning the feed mill, correcting structural defects, eliminating egg shells, meat and bone meal from the feed and testing the feed for SE. FDA inspections were conducted in October and November verifying the changes.
