Hershey recalls products and closes a plant

Hershey has recalled following items due to possible salmonella Virus contamination. Hershey has also closed its Smiths Falls plant after salmonella bacteria was detected in the candy produced there.

Chocolate bars and confectionery:
Oh Henry! (62.5 g, 62.5 g four bar packs, and 145 g)
Oh Henry! Bites (130 g)
Oh Henry! Peanut Butter (60 g)
Reese Peanut Butter Cups (51 g, 68 g, and 51 g four bar packs)
Eat-more Dark Toffee Peanut Chew (56 g, 56 g four bar packs)
Lowney Bridge Mix (52 g and 340 g)
Lowney Cherry Blossom (45 g)
Glosette Peanuts (45 g)
Glosette Almonds (42 g)
Glosette Raisins (50 g and 145 g)
Hershey’s Creamy Milk Chocolate with Almonds (43 grams)
Hershey’s Creamy Milk Chocolate (45 g)
Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate (45 g)
Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate with Almonds (43 g)
Hershey Assorted 16-count (728 g) and 50-count (2.5 kilograms)
Unbranded nut rolls (5 kilograms/bulk)
Hershey’s chocolate shell topping (177 mililitres)

Affected chocolate chips include:

Chipits semi-sweet mint chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate chips (300 g)
Chipits milk chocolate chips (270 g)
Chipits mini chocolate chips (175 g, 300 g, 500 g, 10 kilograms/bulk)
Chipits chocolate chips (10 kilograms/bulk)
Hershey semi-sweet chocolate chips (300 g and 10 kilograms/bulk).

Tags: hershey, salmonella, chocolate, confectionery

Acetaminophen (Pain Killer) pills recalled, Check if yours on list at FDA web site.

Perrigo, a manufacturer of acetaminophen sold by Wal-Mart, CVS, Safeway and more than 100 other retailers recalled 11 million bottles of the widely used pain-relieving pills Thursday after discovering some were contaminated with metal fragments.
The contaminated pills included metal fragments ranging in size from "microdots" to portions of wire one-third of an inch long, the Food and Drug Administration said. Perrigo discovered the metal bits during quality-control checks after realizing the equipment it uses to make pills was wearing down prematurely, the FDA said.
The FDA posted on its Web site the recalled batch numbers and the dozens of chains supplied by Perrigo, which bills itself as the world's largest manufacturer of store-brand nonprescription drugs. The 129 retailers that could potentially be affected by the recall include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Corp., Safeway Stores and SuperValu Inc. They typically sell the Perrigo-made pills under private labels.
Customers can check whether products they bought are being recalled by checking the store list on the FDA Web site and the batch list.

China is hiding H5N1 bird-flu virus information

China's lack of openness about its handling of bird-flu cases makes it difficult for experts to determine if the dangerous H5N1 virus is mutating and spreading, a World Health Organization official told Agence France Presse Friday.

"The situation in China is quite confusing and there is some conflicting information," said Julie Hall, the WHO's coordinator of epidemic alert and response in China.

"We really don't know how many strains of bird flu there are in China because we have limited amounts of information shared with us by the Ministry of Agriculture and the virus samples we have asked for have not been shared," Hall told AFP.

She made her remarks after Chinese officials discounted claims by U.S. and Hong Kong scientists that a new strain of bird flu -- called the "Fujian-like" strain -- had appeared in southern China.

China's Ministry of Agriculture said the strain of bird flu that's emerged in southern China is consistent with earlier strains, AFP reported.

Expert worry that the H5N1 bird-flu virus could mutate into a form that's easily transmitted between humans and spark a global pandemic.

Tags: bird flu, Fujian-like, H5N1