The State : Warning Issued on Cheese

State Health Director Kenneth W. Kizer has urged consumers not to buy or eat Liederkranz cheese sold by General Foods Corp. after discovery by federal investigators of the same family of Listeria bacteria in the cheese that recently caused an epidemic in California. Federal Food and Drug Administration and General Foods officials said that all of the contaminated cheese--about 20,000 packages--was recovered from an Ohio plant where it was being processed and that none reached store shelves. General Foods initiated a national recall of the product anyway as a safety measure. Several major California supermarket chains--including Safeway, Vons, Lucky and Ralph’s--said they did not carry the cheese. An FDA scientist said the precise type of bacteria found in the General Foods cheese was not the same as that which was responsible for 89 deaths this year in California but that it was just as dangerous.