On October 1, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its outbreak investigation of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli and Salmonella linked to sprouts. Today in Public Health detected that update on October 2. The current count is 76 people in 16 states, linked to recalled alfalfa seed lot SAL2-24JB.
That is a larger and more specific number than the earlier recall notice on this desk. It is still not a map of every package, and it is not a finding that one grower’s sprouts explain every illness.
What the October 1 count establishes
FDA, with CDC and state and local partners, says 76 people were infected with multiple strains of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli and one strain of Salmonella. Sixty-four people were infected with E. coli, nine with Salmonella Agona, and three with both. FDA lists the E. coli serotypes as O26:H11, O103:H25 and O168:H8. Some people were infected with more than one outbreak strain, which is why the pathogen split is not three separate outbreaks.
Six people were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported. Illnesses started on dates from May 31, 2026, to September 7, 2026. The investigation remains ongoing.
The interview finding is narrower than the case count. Of 50 people interviewed, 40, or 80 percent, reported eating sprouts, and 35, or 70 percent, specified alfalfa sprouts. Those percentages are among the people who were interviewed, not among all 76. Twenty-six people in the case count do not appear in that interview denominator.
The 16 illness states are Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.
Why one seed lot can travel farther than one recall notice
This is the analytical point, and it should be labeled as analysis. A contaminated seed lot is not a single bag on a single shelf. Seed can move to sprout growers, wholesale distributors and retail buyers. Growers then produce finished sprouts that move again, under other brand names, into stores and restaurants. A recall that starts with one finished product can expand because the shared input was upstream of that product.
FDA’s own page documents that expansion. In August, Everything Sprouts, LLC recalled Calco and Everything Sprouts brand alfalfa sprouts and later expanded the recall to include a sprout mix. In September, the seed supplier initiated a recall of lot SAL2-24JB, and Berlin Seeds recalled 950 pounds of alfalfa sprouting seed from that lot. FDA says sprouts grown from the recalled lot have been recalled and should no longer be available for sale. It also says an earlier traceback found that alfalfa sprouts from Everything Sprouts were one source of illnesses and did not explain all of them.
Those statements can sit together. The October 1 update links the outbreak to the recalled seed lot. An earlier update on the same page says one grower’s finished sprouts do not account for every case. Linking a lot is not the same as closing the investigation.
Illness states are not distribution states
FDA publishes more than one geography, and they answer different questions. The 16 states above are where illnesses were reported. The case-count table lists confirmed product distribution in 45 states and Puerto Rico, and FDA says product could have been distributed further. A separate list covers seed shipped to sprout growers and wholesale distributors, including international shipments to Canada, Mexico, Tahiti and Venezuela.
None of those lists should be substituted for another. A state can appear on a distribution list without a reported illness. A state can report an illness without being the only place the seed was sold. The earlier desk figure of online distribution across 45 states described product movement, not the illness map. The October 1 page keeps that distinction and adds Puerto Rico, plus a warning that distribution may be wider than the confirmed list.
What remains unknown
FDA’s investigation is ongoing. The page does not say that lot SAL2-24JB caused every one of the 76 illnesses, and this article does not fill that gap. It does not say which individual package made any person sick. It does not convert the interview percentages into a finding about the 26 people who were not in that interview group.
The consumer instruction on the page is specific to recalled product: do not eat, sell or serve recalled sprouts, and do not use or sell recalled sprouting seeds. That is not advice about an unnamed brand, and it is not a reason to treat every sprout in the country as recalled. People who ate recalled sprouts and have symptoms of an E. coli or Salmonella infection should contact a health care provider. The symptoms and timing described on the FDA page are general clinical information, not a diagnosis.