The Salmonella Javiana file holds again on Tuesday: FDA's outbreak page, current as of August 21, still counts 431 confirmed illnesses across thirty-two states, 57 hospitalizations, zero deaths, and no illness onset since August 2. The number has not moved since Friday. [1]

What moved is everything around it. The recall cascade that Monday's shelf check described is still running downstream: any manufacturer that used Coast Citrus Distributors' recalled Sinaloa jalapeños must weigh its own recall, and each decision adds rows to FDA's Major Product Recalls hub without adding a dot to the illness map. The agency built that hub on August 20 precisely because the second clock — product still sitting in distribution channels and home refrigerators — runs weeks ahead of the case count. [1]

Two facts in the file deserve their plain statement. Chipotle switched jalapeño suppliers for affected stores on July 20 and QDOBA stopped serving jalapeños on July 28, so FDA no longer considers the chain restaurants an ongoing risk; the exposure that generated 431 cases closed weeks ago, 91 percent of it tied to Mexican-style restaurant meals. What remains live is packaged product — salsas, dips, stuffed-mushroom items — carrying date codes into late September. [1]

The standing advice carries over unchanged. Read the recall list against your own refrigerator instead of trusting the calendar, discard anything matching it, and treat stomach illness arriving twelve to seventy-two hours after a July or August restaurant meal as a reason to call a clinician. Friday brought the last new case number. The shelves have not finished moving.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago