Salmonella found in jars of peanut butter

By ANNA JO BRATTON

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ConAgra Foods last week recalled all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter made at its Sylvester, Ga., plant after federal health officials linked the product to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened almost 300 people nationwide since August.

No deaths have been confirmed, although a Pennsylvania family filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming that a relative died from eating tainted peanut butter.

Salmonella sickens about 40,000 people a year in the U.S. It can cause diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.

In the Pennsylvania case, the family of Roberta Barkay alleges in a negligence and wrongful-death lawsuit against ConAgra that salmonella-tainted peanut butter killed her and sickened her husband and daughter.

Barkay, 76, had been hospitalized with gastrointestinal problems, then developed a bacterial infection before she died Jan. 30, said her lawyer, Rob Peirce.

Her husband, William, was sick with similar symptoms late last year, after the Barkays bought the peanut butter, according to the lawyer and the lawsuit. Their daughter also got sick after eating the peanut butter while at her parents' home for her mother's funeral, Peirce said.

Peirce said the peanut butter was part of the batch ConAgra recalled last week.

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