FDA Finds Maggots, Manure, Rodents in Hen Houses

You might want to skip the omelet for breakfast this morning: Federal inspectors recently found live mice, pigeons, and eight-foot piles of manure inside the hen houses of two massive Iowa egg farms suspected of causing a nationwide outbreak of salmonella. At one of the farms they also found "dead maggots and live flies that crunched under foot," according to the Washington Post. At the other, water used to wash eggs tested positive for salmonella.

Though the two farms—Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms—are major national egg suppliers, neither had ever been inspected by the FDA before. "The question is whether we can be assured this is not the case at other" egg farms, a health expert said. "I don't think FDA is in a position to answer and it just highlights how badly we need an inspection mandate in federal law. Until you have a cop on the beat checking if you've got compliance, things can go awry." (More salmonella stories.)