http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/Recall_048_2010_Release/index.asp This one affects not only institutional locations but also retail (grocery). When it has been traced down enough the retail distribution list will appear in http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FSIS_Recalls/Open_Federal_Cases/index.asp but currently the notice in the article reads Arizona, California, Texas, Oregon and internationally. Cooking to a high enough temperature of 160'F internally does kill E. coli (which stands for Escherichia coli) but according to some past articles I have read some shiga toxin that was already created before the E. coli was cooked with the beef can remain so with beef that contains a shiga toxin producing strain of E. coli it pays to not even eat it cooked well because even though it can be safer it might not be safe enough. If that has changed then that is good, but, honestly, the only way I'd chance it would be if I were starving. (I'm not a horribly unadventurous person; I lived in the Amazon Basin jungles of Suriname helping with a study about 31 years ago, prospected for fossils in the Badlands before that, and worked with a range of apes, monkeys and prosimians as well as other animals. What I don't like are stupid risks. The risk has to be worth the possible result, and personally I think that going from food poisoning IF it is known about to be avoided just is not worth it though others may and probably will disagree.) This is what E. coli WITHOUT shiga toxin can do: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/diarrecoli_t.htm With shiga toxin there can also be hemorrhagic diarrhea (bloody diarrhea), the break down of red blood cells, and kidney failure. This one is a killer in ferrets as well as humans. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6782]