Food Safety Attorney Bill Marler Releases Draft FDA Petition to Require a Warning Label on Raw Sprouts and Asks for Public Comment Before Filing

With two sprout outbreaks open and 87 people sick in 19 states, the petition would put on every package the advice FDA has given high-risk consumers since 1998 

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash., Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Food safety attorney Bill Marler, managing partner of Marler Clark, Inc., PS, today released a draft citizen petition asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require a warning statement on the label of raw and lightly cooked sprouts, and invited sprout growers, seed suppliers, retailers, restaurant operators, public health officials, consumer advocates and people sickened by sprouts to comment on it before he files it in October. 

The draft petition is posted at marlerblog.com, with an explanation of the request at Marler Blog. The current draft already reflects comments received since it was first posted on September 27. Comments may be sent to [email protected] through Friday, October 9, 2026, and Marler said he will post a final draft before filing. 

"Twenty-eight years is long enough for the package to say nothing," Marler said. "FDA has told children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems not to eat raw sprouts since 1998, and later added pregnant women — in press releases, talk papers, a model food code and consumer booklets. Not one of those words has ever appeared on a package of sprouts." 

What the petition asks 

The petition asks FDA to amend 21 CFR 101.17, the regulation that already requires warning statements on unpasteurized juice, iron-containing supplements and shell eggs, by adding a paragraph for sprouts. The proposed statement: 

WARNING: Sprouts may contain harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria, that can cause serious illness, kidney failure or death. Sprouts are eaten raw and cannot be pasteurized, and the bacteria may be inside the seed, where washing cannot reach them. Children, the elderly, pregnant women, and persons with weakened immune systems should not eat raw or lightly cooked sprouts. 

The statement would be boxed, with the word WARNING in bold capitals, in type no smaller than 8 points. Packages too small to carry it could use a placard at the point of sale. The same statement would appear on signs or menus wherever sprouts are sold unpackaged, on the product listing wherever sprouts are sold online, and on seed sold at retail for home sprouting. Sprouts treated by a validated process that reduces pathogens would be exempt, as treated juice is exempt today. The petition asks that a final rule takes effect 60 days after publication and that FDA, as it did for juice in 1998, urge sellers to begin using the statement as soon as it is proposed. 

"This is not a ban. It is a sentence on a label," Marler said. "FDA wrote the juice warning in seventy-five days in 1998. The finding it needs for sprouts is already in its own Food Code, which has kept raw sprouts out of hospitals, nursing homes and day care centers since 1999. The shopper in the grocery store deserves the same information the patient in the nursing home already gets." 

Why now 

Two sprout outbreaks are under investigation at the same time. Alfalfa sprouts grown in Minnesota have been linked to 55 illnesses in 15 states, with four hospitalizations; broccoli sprouts grown in Idaho have been linked to 32 illnesses in six states, with three hospitalizations, according to CDC's September 24 update. The broccoli sprout recall announced September 10 covered bags delivered between August 24 and September 2; CDC's data show 25 of the 32 people were already sick by August 23. On September 24 FDA reported that broccoli sprouts collected from a Washington grocery store and from a sick person's home both matched the outbreak strain. The alfalfa seed lot was sold to growers and distributors in 16 states, Puerto Rico and four countries, and on September 23 an Ohio seed company recalled 950 pounds of it sold to home sprouters in 44 states in small bags with no lot code. 

FDA first advised children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems to avoid raw sprouts on August 31, 1998, repeated the advice in 1999 and 2002, later extended it to pregnant women, and in 1999 added raw seed sprouts to the Food Code's list of foods that may not be served to highly susceptible populations in 1999. By FDA's own count, contaminated sprouts caused 52 outbreaks and more than 2,700 illnesses in the United States between 1996 and 2020, and the agency has said that contaminated seed is the likely source of most of them. Marler first asked FDA to require a warning on raw sprouts in March 2003. 

What happens next 

After the comment period closes on October 9, Marler will post a revised draft and file the petition in FDA's citizen petition docket. Under FDA's regulations, the agency has 180 days to respond. Once the petition is filed, the public may submit comments directly to FDA at regulations.gov. 

About Marler Clark 

Marler Clark, Inc., PS, The Food Safety Law Firm, is based in Bainbridge Island, Washington, and represents people injured by contaminated food. Bill Marler has represented victims of foodborne illness since the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, including plaintiffs in sprout outbreaks traced to Caudill Seed Company alfalfa sprouts (2009), Jimmy John's clover sprouts, Wonton Foods mung bean sprouts (2014) and Sprouts Extraordinaire alfalfa sprouts (2016). He founded Food Safety News in 2009, teaches food safety at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and is the subject of the book and Emmy Award–winning Netflix documentary Poisoned.

SOURCE Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm