As of September 17, CDC counts 37 people with hepatitis A in four states linked to imported frozen blood clams, 30 of them hospitalized, none dead, with illness onsets running from July 30, 2025 to June 23, 2026. FDA’s safety alert for the same clams — the page a restaurant, an inspector or a home cook is most likely to land on — was last updated May 22 and still says the last illness began in February. Neither federal page says what New Jersey’s shellfish program said in April: the clams were illegally imported from an unapproved source. Five months into a federal investigation, that is the state of the public record.
What CDC’s page says
CDC first published its outbreak page on June 5, a month after it says the multistate investigation began. That first version counted 30 illnesses in three states, with onsets from July 30, 2025 to May 1, 2026. By August 20 the count was 37 in four states — Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania — and the latest onset had moved out to June 23. The September 18 refresh, with data as of September 17, changed nothing: 37 sick, 30 hospitalized, no deaths, the same onset window. CDC’s map puts 27 of the 37 in New York, four in Pennsylvania, three in Massachusetts and three in Minnesota.
Patients range from 6 to 40 years old. Of those interviewed, 77 percent ate ceviche, 76 percent ate raw or undercooked shellfish, and 47 percent ate raw or undercooked conchas negras, all significantly above what the FoodNet Population Survey finds in the general public. CDC’s language is careful — “potentially linked,” “may have gotten sick” — and its traceback sentence has not changed since June: investigators are still working to identify the source or sources of the frozen clams that sick people ate.
A month with no new onset is good news. It is not the end of the story, because frozen shellfish does not expire on the investigators’ schedule.
What FDA’s page says
FDA posted its safety alert on April 30, after the New York State Department of Health notified it of hepatitis A cases that the New York City Health Department had tied to clam ceviche going back to the previous summer. That first version covered distribution in New York and New Jersey only, gave onset dates of July 2025 through February 2026, and noted that New York City had found no new cases since February.
The May 22 update widened distribution to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, added CDC to the list of investigators, and acknowledged that related cases had been reported in other states. The onset range stayed July 2025 through February 2026. The page closes with a promise to update the alert as new information becomes available. Its “content current as of” stamp reads June 8. There has been no update since.
The result is that anyone who reads FDA’s alert today learns that this was a New York problem that ended in February. Anyone who reads CDC’s page learns that it reached four states and that people were still getting sick in June. Each page links to the other. Neither reconciles them. FDA’s alert has never carried a case count at all.
What neither federal page says
The most important fact in this outbreak appears in a state notice, not a federal one. At the end of April the New Jersey Department of Health issued a notice headed “Illegally Imported Concha Negra Blood Clams.” It said the clams were illegally imported from Ecuador, asked county inspectors to look for the product and arrange for its destruction because it came from an unapproved source. New Jersey also noted that blood clams are legal to import from Mexico.
The distinction is not a technicality. Raw molluscan shellfish can enter the United States only from countries whose shellfish sanitation programs FDA has recognized in a formal agreement — Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea and the European Union. Ecuador is not on that list. A package of La Serranita concha negra should never have cleared a U.S. port, and every package that did was an enforcement failure before it was a public health one.
FDA’s alert describes the product as “from Ecuador” and stops there. It does not say the import was illegal or the source unapproved, how the product got in, or whether the importer is now on an import alert.
Nor does any public document name the companies. FDA and CDC both say the product was “recalled by dealers in New Jersey and New York.” New York’s notice, posted through the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference on April 24, says the clams went from “a New Jersey dealer/importer” to “a New York dealer.” New Jersey says its dealer “contacted all customers.” Connecticut’s health department said on May 15 that a limited number of Connecticut retailers had received the product. Five months on, the importer and the dealer are still anonymous, I can find no company recall announcement on FDA’s recall page, and a restaurant that wants to check its invoices has nothing to check them against but a brand name.
Why the gap matters
Hepatitis A virus survives freezing. A 16-ounce bag of frozen clam meat bought last spring is as dangerous today as it was the day it was packed, and the incubation period runs 15 to 50 days, so the first sign of a problem arrives weeks after the meal. The window for post-exposure prophylaxis — the vaccine or immune globulin that can stop an infection after exposure — is two weeks. CDC’s page tells people who ate the product within the last 14 days and are not vaccinated to call a provider. FDA’s page tells people who may have eaten it to contact a provider, but never mentions prophylaxis or the two-week clock that makes it work.
Raw shellfish and hepatitis A is the oldest story in foodborne illness. I have written the history: 459 cases from Raritan Bay clams in New Jersey in 1961, and 292,301 cases from clams in Shanghai in 1988, the largest hepatitis A outbreak ever recorded. Shellfish concentrate whatever is in the water they filter, and the only real defense is control of the harvest area. That is the whole point of the National Shellfish Sanitation Program, and it is the reason imports from countries outside the program are illegal. When product from outside the program reaches a plate anyway, the public deserves to be told so in plain words by the agency that runs the program.
I wrote about this outbreak the day FDA’s alert posted in April. Nearly everything the public has learned since has come from CDC and the states, not from the agency with jurisdiction over the product.
What should happen now
Three things, none of them hard.
FDA should update its safety alert to match CDC’s record: 37 cases, four states, onset dates through June 23, and a plain statement that the product came from an unapproved source and was imported illegally. The agency promised on May 22 to update the alert as new information became available. It became available in June, August and September.
FDA should name the importer and the New York dealer. A company name and a consignee list are what turn “do not sell La Serranita concha negra” into something a restaurant can act on with an invoice in hand.
And FDA should say how the product got in. Import controls on molluscan shellfish exist for exactly this reason. If they failed, the public record should say where, and whether the same channel is closed today.
Thirty-seven people, thirty of them hospitalized, is not a small hepatitis A outbreak. It deserves one federal page that tells the whole story, not two that each tell part of it.
Three questions readers are asking
What is the latest count in the blood clam hepatitis A outbreak? As of September 17, 2026: 37 illnesses, 30 hospitalizations and no deaths, in Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania. Illness onsets run from July 30, 2025 to June 23, 2026.
Is the product still dangerous? Yes. Freezing does not inactivate hepatitis A virus, and the alert on La Serranita-brand concha negra shell meat from Ecuador remains in effect. Do not eat it, sell it or serve it. Throw it out.
What if I ate it? If it was within the last 14 days and you are not vaccinated against hepatitis A, contact your doctor or local health department now about post-exposure prophylaxis. If you develop dark urine, pale stools, jaundice, fatigue, nausea or stomach pain, see a doctor and mention the clams.
Recent Comments