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Bedner cucumbers are back, making people sick once again

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Coon Rapids Gazette

Bedner cucumbers are back, making people sick once again

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Bedner cucumbers are back, making people sick once again

Whole cucumbers grown by Bedner Growers Inc. and distributed by Fresh Start Produce Inc. are linked to a multistate outbreak of Salmonella in several states that began April 29, 2025, and continues to this past Monday, May 19, 2025.

Bedner Growers, Inc., of Boynton Beach, Florida, is one of the growers linked to last year’s outbreak of Salmonella Africana and Salmonella Braenderup, infections with 551 illnesses in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Salmonella Braenderup was detected in canal water samples at Bedner Growers’ farm.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and state and local public health and regulatory officials are collecting different types of data to investigate the new multistate Salmonella Montevideo outbreak.

CDC advises businesses not to sell or serve whole cucumbers grown by Bedner Growers Inc. and distributed by Fresh Start Produce Inc. between April 29, 2025, and May 19, 2025, while the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with whole cucumbers in their home who can’t tell where they are from should throw them out.

Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback data show that cucumbers may be contaminated with Salmonella, making people sick.

Epidemiologic data

As of May 19, 2025, 26 people infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella have been reported from 15 states. Seven sick people reported taking a cruise seven days before becoming ill, all departing from locations in Florida.

Sick people were aboard five different cruise ships that departed the United States between March 30 and April 12. Illnesses started from April 2, 2025, to April 28, 2025. Of 23 people with information available, nine have been hospitalized, with no deaths yet reported.

CDC and FDA figures indicate that the number of sick people in this outbreak was likely much higher than the reported number, and this outbreak may not have been limited to the states with known illnesses. This is because many people recover without medical care and are not tested for Salmonella. In addition, recent illnesses may not yet be reported, as it usually takes 3 to 4 weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak.

Public health officials collect many different types of information from sick people, including their age, race, ethnicity, other demographics, and the foods they ate the week before they got ill. This information provides clues to help investigators identify the source of the outbreak.

Victims in the current outbreak range from 2 to 69 years, with the median age being 53. Seventy-five (75) percent are white, 25 percent are Black, and 14 percent are Hispanic. The linked cucumbers have so far infected no Native Americans or Asian Americans.

State and local public health officials are interviewing people about the foods they ate the week before they got sick. Of the 13 interviewed, 11 (85 percent) reported eating cucumbers. This percentage was significantly higher than the 50 percent of respondents who reported eating cucumbers in the FoodNet Population Survey. This survey helps estimate how often people eat foods linked to diarrheal illness.

This difference suggests that people in this outbreak got sick from eating cucumbers. Sick people on cruise ships reported eating cucumbers while on board. Three people traveled on the same boat.

Laboratory and traceback data

Public health investigators use the PulseNet system to identify illnesses that may be part of this outbreak. CDC PulseNet manages a national database of DNA fingerprints of bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses. DNA fingerprinting is performed on bacteria using whole-genome sequencing (WGS). WGS showed that bacteria from sick people’s samples are closely related genetically. This suggests that people in this outbreak got sick from the same food.

People reported buying and eating cucumbers from various locations, including grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, and cruise ships. The FDA’s traceback investigation identified Bedner Growers Inc. as the common cucumber grower in this outbreak.

The FDA inspected Bedner Farms Inc. in April 2025 as a follow-up to a previous outbreak. During that inspection, environmental samples were collected. One environmental sample was identified as the outbreak strain of Salmonella. Based on the timing of illnesses in this outbreak, the CDC and FDA are concerned that contaminated cucumbers may still be within their shelf life.

WGS analysis of 25 people’s samples did not predict antibiotic resistance. One person’s sample predicted resistance to trimethoprim. More information is available at the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) site. Most people with Salmonella illness recover without antibiotics. However, if antibiotics are needed, this resistance is unlikely to affect the choice of antibiotic used to treat most people.

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Bedner cucumbers are back, making people sick once again

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Europe records rise in food safety alerts

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Kratom ban is just one vote away in Louisiana

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Bedner cucumbers are back, making people sick once again

May 20, 2025

Europe records rise in food safety alerts

May 20, 2025

Kratom ban is just one vote away in Louisiana

May 20, 2025

A Soviet spacecraft is plunging back to Earth this week 53 years after it was launched. Here’s what to know.

Just weeks ago, scientists warned that a “city killer” asteroid had a small chance of hitting Earth. While that prediction was thankfully revised, the planet may have to worry about another object plummeting down from the heavens — a 1970s spacecraft called Kosmos 482.

The Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus a half century ago is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth.

It’s too early to know where the half-ton mass of metal might come down or how much of it will survive reentry, according to space debris-tracking experts.

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek, a lecturer at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, predicts the failed spacecraft will reenter around May 10. He estimates it will come crashing in at 150 mph, if it remains intact.

“While not without risk, we should not be too worried,” Langbroek said in an email.

The object is relatively small and, even if it doesn’t break apart, “the risk is similar to that of a random meteorite fall, several of which happen each year. You run a bigger risk of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime,” he said.

The chance of the spacecraft actually hitting someone or something is small, he added. “But it cannot be completely excluded.”

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian, told NPR that the spacecraft is making its “final death plunge.“

“I expect it’ll have the usual one-in-several-thousand chance of hitting someone,” McDowell wrote last month. “No need for major concern, but you wouldn’t want it bashing you on the head.”

Kosmos 482 launched in 1972

The Soviet Union launched Kosmos 482 in 1972, one of a series of Venus missions. But it never made it out of Earth’s orbit because of a rocket malfunction.

Most of it came tumbling down within a decade. But Langbroek and others believe the landing capsule itself — a spherical object about 3 feet in diameter — has been circling the world in a highly elliptical orbit for the past 53 years, gradually dropping in altitude.

It’s quite possible that the 1,000-pound-plus spacecraft will survive reentry. It was built to withstand a descent through the carbon dioxide-thick atmosphere of Venus, said Langbroek.

Experts doubt the parachute system would work after so many years. The heat shield may also be compromised after so long in orbit.

It would be better if the heat shield fails, which would cause the spacecraft to burn up during its dive through the atmosphere, McDowell said in an email. But if the heat shield holds, “it’ll reenter intact and you have a half-ton metal object falling from the sky.”

The spacecraft could reenter anywhere between 51.7 degrees north and south latitude, or as far north as London and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, almost all the way down to South America’s Cape Horn. But since most of the planet is water, “chances are good it will indeed end up in some ocean,” Langbroek said.

Space debris could impact planes

Space junk crashing back back to Earth could be a growing problem for aircraft, researchers warned in a recent study.

The study’s authors said that the probability of space debris hitting an airplane is small, but the risk is rising due to increases in both space debris reentries and flights.

The study found that high-density regions close to major airports have an 0.8% chance per year of being affected by an uncontrolled rocket reentry, but in “larger but still busy” airspace areas like those found in the northeastern U.S. or around major cities in Asia, the risk rose to 26%.

“While the probability of a strike is low, the consequences could be catastrophic,” the researchers said in the study, which was published in Scientific Reports.

Space junk has hit Earth recently

Space debris has crashed back into Earth in recent months.

In February, debris from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that blasted off in the United States entered the Earth’s atmosphere over Poland. Two chunks from an unidentified object — both measuring about 5 feet by 3 feet — were later found on the ground. Police said it was possible the objects came from the SpaceX rocket.

Last New Year’s Eve, fragments of metal, believed to be from a rocket, crashed into a village in Kenya.

In March 2024, NASA faced a lawsuit from a family whose Florida home was hit by a piece of falling metal.

The month before that, the European Space Agency said a satellite — weighing as much as an adult male rhinoceros — made an uncontrolled return to Earth, reentering the atmosphere over the north Pacific Ocean between Alaska and Hawaii. Most of the satellite burned up as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere.

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