Berkeley Club Beverages was forced to recall about 151,397.75 water bottles over concerns of contamination of coliform bacteria. As mentioned in a Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) report, the Class III recall was initiated on September 12 in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia but was terminated on November 13.
All the bottles in question came in the one and five-gallon sizing and have the codes 090326, 090426, 090526, 090626. According to the New York State Department of Health, coliforms are "bacteria present in the digestive tracts of animals, including humans, and are found in their wastes." However, it can also be found in plants and soil.
FDA issues a Class III classification over the Berkeley Club Beverages water bottle recall; here's all we know
According to the FDA, a Class III classification comes in "a situation in which use of, or exposure to, a violative product is not likely to cause adverse health consequences." This is the lowest level of seriousness of all classifications.
Per ScienceDirect, coliforms may not be so alarming in and of itself, but their very presence indicates that other disease-causing pathogens “of fecal origin” may be around, such as E.Coli. The article states:
"The presence of this organism may be an indicator of fecal contamination and be related to use of polluted irrigation water, the presence of feces, or poor sanitation and hygiene.”
E.Coli, while it may be of several types, can produce common mild symptoms like mild, brief diarrhea or extreme ones like severe, bloody diarrhea, stomach pain, and vomiting. However, it is crucial to note that it is typically rare for E. coli to infect drinking water.
The FDA did not mention whether the presence of the same was detected in the Berkeley Club Beverages recalled water bottles, and Berkeley Club Beverages has yet to issue a statement on the same. The company also failed to issue instructions for customers on how to go about the recall.
Notably, this isn't the first case of recalling of contaminated water bottles this year. Just this May, almost 1.9 million bottles of Fiji Water were recalled by Natural Waters of Viti Limited (NWVL), citing concerns about manganese and three bacteria.
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Akin to the Berkeley Club Beverages water bottle recall, the Fiji bottle recalls fell under the Class III classification by the FDA. Per the National Institutes of Health (NIH), trace amounts of manganese are required in the body to stay healthy. However, the amount varies by age and gender. Regardless, high levels of manganese can culminate in manganese toxicity.
Reportedly, Fiji Water asserted that the risk of manganese toxicity was virtually non-existent in the recalled water bottles.
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