The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a broad Food Safety Alert Tuesday advising people, restaurants and stores to throw out any form of romaine lettuce due to reports of a new outbreak of a dangerous strain of E. coli bacteria.
What's new: There have been 32 cases reported in 11 states so far, with 11 hospitalizations and no deaths, the CDC says. While it's the same virulent strain of the E. coli 157:H7 that caused an outbreak that ended on June 28 (also connected to romaine lettuce), this one has a different DNA footprint, the CDC says. The current outbreak genetically matches one alerted in two provinces of Canada today as well.