CDC updated its outbreak page on October 1. Seventy-six people in sixteen states are infected with one of three strains of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (O26:H11, O103:H25 and O168:H8) or with Salmonella Agona, traced to alfalfa sprouts grown from a single lot of alfalfa seed, lot SAL2-24JB. Six people have been hospitalized. No one has died. Illnesses began between May 31 and September 7. That is twenty-one more sick people, two more hospitalizations and one more state than CDC reported on September 1, and more people than any sprout outbreak in this country since the 2014 Wonton Foods mung bean sprout outbreak sickened 115.
Minnesota has 28 of the sick and Wisconsin 27, 55 of the 76. Oregon is the new state, with one case; it is also on FDA’s list of states that received the seed lot. None of the other thirteen states has more than three, and nine have one.
Put the numbers against the calendar. The first person got sick on May 31. Minnesota and Wisconsin named the grower on August 20, a company FDA had sent a warning letter to in March 2025, and Everything Sprouts recalled its Calco and Everything Sprouts alfalfa sprouts on August 22, eighty-three days after that first illness. By August 20, seventy-two of the seventy-six people in this outbreak were already sick. Four more got sick after the recall, the last on September 7, sixteen days after it. A recall is a warning that arrives after the outbreak. The warning FDA has given since 1998, that children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems should not eat raw sprouts, has never once been printed on a package of sprouts. It would have been on every package in this outbreak before the first person got sick. That is what my draft citizen petition asks FDA to require, and comments on the draft are open until October 9.
Where the seventy-six live, and where the seed went
| State | Sick people | Change since the August 21 export |
| Minnesota | 28 | +7 |
| Wisconsin | 27 | +10 |
| North Carolina | 3 | +1 |
| North Dakota | 3 | +1 |
| Florida | 2 | 0 |
| Iowa | 2 | +1 |
| New York | 2 | 0 |
| Indiana | 1 | 0 |
| Kansas | 1 | 0 |
| Michigan | 1 | 0 |
| New Hampshire | 1 | 0 |
| Oregon | 1 | +1 (new state) |
| Pennsylvania | 1 | 0 |
| South Carolina | 1 | 0 |
| South Dakota | 1 | 0 |
| Washington | 1 | 0 |
| Total, 16 states | 76 | +21 |
Table 1. Where the 76 sick people live, from CDC’s data export dated September 30, 2026 and posted with the October 1 update, against the export of August 21. The sixteen state rows sum to 76 and the changes sum to 21.
CDC’s map shows where sick people live, not where they ate sprouts. A state where the seed arrived and no one was tested does not appear at all. FDA’s advisory draws a different map: the recalled seed lot went to sprout growers and wholesale distributors in sixteen states and Puerto Rico and abroad to Canada, Mexico, Tahiti and Venezuela, and Berlin Seeds of Millersburg, Ohio sold 950 pounds of it at retail and online to home sprouters in forty-four states between February 13 and August 23. Sixteen states have cases. Forty-four states have the seed.
When they got sick
| Illness onset period | People | Share |
| May 31 – July 4 | 9 | 12% |
| July 5 – August 1 | 57 | 75% |
| August 2 – 22 (Everything Sprouts recalled August 22) | 6 | 8% |
| August 23 – September 7, after the recall | 4 | 5% |
| Total | 76 | 100% |
Table 2. Illness onsets by period, computed from CDC’s data export dated September 30, 2026. The four periods sum to 76. The peak week was July 19–25, with 19 onsets.
Three quarters, 57 of 76, got sick in the four weeks from July 5 to August 1, a window no August 22 recall could reach. CDC has not said what the four people who fell ill after the recall ate or where it came from. What is on the record is that Everything Sprouts shipped its last recalled alfalfa sprouts on August 21 and its last recalled radish mix on August 26, that FDA has identified a second grower that used the same seed lot and has never named it, and that the seed itself was on a store shelf and a website until August 23. CDC cautions that recent illnesses may not be counted yet and that the true number is likely much higher.
What CDC’s October 1 update adds
Sixty-four people were infected with E. coli alone, nine with Salmonella alone, and three with both. All twelve Salmonella isolates were predicted resistant to three or more of five antibiotics, azithromycin now among them.
Of fifty people interviewed, forty ate sprouts and thirty-five named alfalfa sprouts, against 8.7 percent of the general population. Seven illness clusters, unrelated people who ate, shopped or gathered at the same place, have been identified in Minnesota and Wisconsin, up from two in August, and alfalfa sprouts were the food they most often had in common. The sick range in age from 12 to 94, and three in four are women.
The first sentence of CDC’s update is no longer about a grower. It says the recalled seed lot “may be contaminated with multiple pathogens and may be making people sick.” The company that sold that lot is still not named on CDC’s page or FDA’s. It is named in FDA’s own weekly Enforcement Report, which lists a Class I recall of 43,799 pounds of alfalfa seed by International Sprout Holding Inc. of Cookeville, Tennessee, initiated August 23, and in the recall notice of a downstream seller, Todd’s Seeds. And as of this writing, FDA’s outbreak advisory is still dated September 24 and still says 55 people in 15 states.
This seed lot reached people by four routes, and the petition reaches all four
In this outbreak the seed traveled by four routes to the people who ate it, and the draft petition puts the warning on each.
The grocery shelf. Calco and Everything Sprouts alfalfa sprouts were sold in five-ounce cups at grocery stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The petition asks FDA to amend 21 CFR 101.17, the regulation that already requires warning statements on unpasteurized juice, iron supplements and shell eggs, so that every package of raw or lightly cooked sprouts carries one: that sprouts may contain harmful bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria, that the bacteria may be inside the seed where washing cannot reach them, and that children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems should not eat them raw.
The restaurant plate. The traceback that found this grower began in Minnesota and Wisconsin restaurants, and the seven clusters are restaurants, events and stores. There is no package on a plate. The 1998 juice rule left unpackaged product out; the petition asks for the same statement on a sign, placard or menu wherever raw sprouts are served or sold loose, at delis, sandwich counters and salad bars.
The online listing. Todd’s Seeds sold alfalfa seed and alfalfa-containing mixes from this lot through its website and Amazon from January into May. The petition asks for the statement on the product listing wherever sprouts or sprouting seed are sold online.
The home sprouter’s bag. Berlin Seeds sold the lot in forty-four states for six months, and its quarter-, half- and one-pound bags carry no lot code, so a home sprouter cannot tell whether a bag is recalled. A warning on the bag does not depend on a lot code. The petition asks that seed sold at retail for sprouting carry the same statement.
The petition is not a ban. It exempts sprouts cooked through and sprouts treated by a process validated to kill the pathogens in the finished product, the path the juice rule gave juice makers in 1998. And it does not ask FDA to say anything new. The youngest person in this outbreak is 12 and the oldest is 94. Those are the two groups the agency has been telling not to eat raw sprouts for twenty-eight years, everywhere but the place where the purchase is made.
Read the draft and tell me what I got wrong
The draft petition is posted here. Comments go to bmarler@marlerclark.com by Friday, October 9. I will read every one, post a revised draft, and then file the petition in FDA’s citizen petition docket. The Food Code has kept raw sprouts off the menu in hospitals, nursing homes and day care centers since 1999. The shopper holding a cup of sprouts in a grocery store deserves the same sentence the patient in the nursing home already gets.
What to do now
- The recalled Calco and Everything Sprouts alfalfa sprouts, the Crunchy Protein and Zesty Garlic mixes and the Robust Radish Sprout Mix are past their best-by dates. If any are in your refrigerator, throw them out.
- If you sprout at home, check for Berlin Seeds alfalfa sprouting seed bought since February 13. The five- and fifty-pound bags carry lot SAL2-24JB; the smaller bags carry no lot code, so treat any of them as recalled. Check also for Todd’s Seeds alfalfa seed and its alfalfa mixes. Do not sprout them. Throw them away or return them.
- If you ate sprouts and have diarrhea with a fever above 102°F, bloody diarrhea, vomiting that keeps you from holding down liquids, or diarrhea that has lasted more than two days, see a doctor. If you are diagnosed, ask that the isolate be kept; whole genome sequencing is what links an illness to this outbreak.
- Marler Clark’s page on this outbreak, with the state-by-state record and how to reach us, is here.
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