It’s a sad day for cereal lovers around the world as the CDC and FDA have just given a rather stern warning to throw out all boxes of Kellog’s popular Honey Smacks cereal after it was reported that more than 70 people got salmonella from the puffed, sweet cereal. It’s been reported by People, that as of late, the CDC and the FDA have issued a strict warning against eating any of the cereal regardless of the box or the date it was purchased.
This new announcement comes following Kellog’s voluntary announcement nearly one week ago on June 14, where they recalled boxes of the cereal within a certain “best by” date range after it was linked to a salmonella outbreak that left more than 24 people hospitalized.
The CDC issued its warning Thursday as Kellogg announced that it voluntarily recalled 15.3 oz. and 23 oz. packages of the cereal with the famous Dig’em Frog mascot on the box. No other Kellogg products were impacted by the recall at the time, according to the company’s statement.
However since the outbreak, now government agencies are broadening the list of potentially contaminated boxes urging owners of the cereal to discard their boxes altogether.
According to a report by Forbes, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of Thursday, the Salmonella Mbandaka outbreak has resulted in at least 73 people infected from 31 states, 24 people being hospitalized, and fortunately no deaths to date. New York has had the most cases of the outbreak with seven, while California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania all have had the next highest amount of cases with five each. Michigan and Virginia each have had four.
“The FDA is advising consumers to not eat and to discard any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal,” they wrote in an update on their website. “The recall notice accounts for all of the product that is on the market within the cereal’s estimated one-year shelf-life. However, Honey Smack’s products with earlier dates could also potentially be contaminated.”
The CDC followed suit and echoed this warning, calling for consumers to throw away or return any boxes they have. They add that even if someone has already eaten the cereal and not gotten sick, you should still throw out the rest of the box. The CDC also advised that you should thoroughly wash anything that the cereal may have touched. So if you stored the cereal in a plastic container, use the appropriate soap/detergent to disinfect it thoroughly.
Since the recall, Kellogg has launched an investigation into the origins of how the cereal could have possibly been contaminated. The FDA describes this as an “ongoing investigation,” and says they will provide updates “as more information becomes available, such as product information, epidemiological results, and recalls.”
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