149 Fall Ill From Romaine Lettuce

Four more states are reporting illnesses in a food poisoning outbreak linked to romaine lettuce.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its numbers on the outbreak Wednesday, revealing that 149 people in 29 states had gotten sick.

It’s unclear if new illness are still occurring. There’s a lag in reporting, and the most recent illness began two weeks ago.

Florida, Minnesota, North Dakota and Texas have joined the list of states reporting at least one E. coli illness linked to the outbreak.

At least 64 people have been hospitalized, including 17 with kidney failure. One death, previously reported, occurred in California.

The outbreak has now affected people in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York and nearly half the rest of the U.S. states. The most cases have been reported in California (30), followed by Pennsylvania (20) and Idaho (11). To date, New Jersey has eight cases — an increase of one from the last CDC update — New York has four (an increase of two) and Connecticut has two.

Health officials have tied the outbreak to romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, which provides most of the romaine sold in the U.S. during the winter.

The CDC has advised consumers:

Do not eat or buy romaine lettuce unless you can confirm it is not from the Yuma growing region. Romaine lettuce has a shelf life of several weeks, and contaminated lettuce could still be in homes, stores, and restaurants.

Product labels often do not identify growing regions; so, do not eat or buy romaine lettuce if you do not know where it was grown.

This advice includes whole heads and hearts of romaine, chopped romaine, baby romaine, organic romaine, and salads and salad mixes containing romaine lettuce. If you do not know if the lettuce in a salad mix is romaine, do not eat it.