debess. work for the state of oregon department of health. >> narrator: interviews with other victims revealed that many had eaten the same brand of chicken that debess had brought back from the store. for him, it confirmed that the salmonelheidelberg was coming from one company. (clucking to "africa" by toto) >> narrator: foster farms, the largest poultry producer on the west coast. and it wasn't just oregon. health officials in washington state were also seeing a significant jump in cases of salmonella heidelberg that they traced back to foster farms. >> after a while, we started calling this molecular pattern, this dna fingerprint if you will, the foster farms pattern because it was so tightly associated with people who were eating chicken from foster farms. >> narrator: the illnesses were more serious than just the usual food poisoning. people were being hospitalized. >> salmonellheidelberg is more commonly found in blood than many of the other salmonella serotypes, so it probably has mor