Public Health Alert Issued Over Illegally Imported Food

Meat, fish and poultry products are the subject of a public health alert issued by the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), after they were illegally imported to the U.S. from Myanmar.

The FSIS announced on Thursday that six cans and one vacuum-sealed clear package of meat, poultry, curry, pastes, dried fish and duck blood were being illegally sold in nine states across the U.S.

Myanmar is not eligible to export meat or dairy products into the U.S., but surveillance activities undertaken by the FSIS found that these foods, from Myanmar, were being sold in American stores. Its investigation into how these products entered the country is ongoing.

The FSIS is urging customers not to consume these products, and to throw them away or return them to where they were bought instead.

The agency is also urging retailers who may have purchased these products not to sell them. Newsweek has contacted the FSIS for comment.

There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions in relation to these products, but the FSIS website advises that anyone concerned about an illness should contact a health care provider.

The products do not bear an establishment number nor a USDA mark of inspection.

They include cans sold under the brand name “BEST,” including beef curry (180g), chicken biryani (425g) and Myanmar duck blood (425g).

Canned pastes were also being sold, including Hti Mi Gwik Dry MoHinGa paste and Eain Chak MoHinGa paste—which both contained catfish—and Eain Chak Coconut Soup paste, which contained chicken.

Min Thar Gyi Dried Fish was also subject to the public health alert.

The products were being sold in retail locations in Arizona, California, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.

Consumers with food-safety questions can call the Department of Agriculture’s toll-free Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or send a question via email to MPHotline@usda.gov.

This incident is not the first of its kind this year. In August, the FSIS issued a similar public health alert for 17 meat and poultry products that had been illegally imported to the U.S. from Myanmar.

Eight of those products were curry related, and all but two were sold under the brand name “Grandma.”

The illegally imported fare included sardines in tomato sauce, fried carp with curry paste, anabas curry, steamed carp fish, fish with salt, chickpea curry, steamed ngo gyin fish, carp fish in fermented soybeans, catfish and noni, striped catfish and tomato curry, striped catfish and mango curry, and ohn no khao swe chicken.

This public health alert comes hot on the heels of a mass food-poisoning outbreak linked to McDonald’s, recalls connected to that outbreak and the recall of taco kits over possible bacterial contamination.

Do you have a tip on a food story that Newsweek should be covering? Is there a nutrition concern that’s worrying you? Let us know via science@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured in Newsweek.