Does commercial sour cream still contain live bacteria? A family member cannot consume them, so I am looking for a way to recognize sour cream without live cultures.  
Joe M.'s answer is correct that it's difficult to get this information, though you can always try contacting the manufacturer directly.  But in general I would assume that commercial sour cream still contains at least some live bacteria.  In the U.S., food packaging laws require sour cream produced with bacterial cultures to be labeled either "sour cream" or "cultured sour cream."  Sour cream produced without bacteria by law must be explicitly labeled "acidified sour cream."  ("Acidified sour cream" usually has an inferior flavor and generally tends to show up as ingredients in other things or occasionally in low-fat or non-fat varieties.  In any case, "acidified" here only means that acids were used at some point to help the process along, so it doesn't guarantee that cultures were NOT used.)  To my knowledge, sour cream is generally NOT heat treated after culturing (unlike some yogurt), which means that active cultures are probably still present in significant numbers in most "cultured" sour cream.  And even if it is "heat treated" as some yogurts are, I don't think sour cream could actually be "re-pasteurized" without ruining the texture, so it's very unlikely to find a "cultured" sour cream that has no live bacteria in it.  Products explicitly labeled with a "live and active cultures" designation have to meet a standard for a minimum of bacterial concentration, but other products that are "cultured" without that designation likely still have residual live bacteria unless proven otherwise.    Another thought to make a determination is to try to culture with the cream yourself.  Put a tablespoon or two of the sour cream in a few ounces of fresh pasteurized milk (or some fresh cream), and let it sit out at room temperature.  If the sour cream has active cultures, it will likely start to thicken significantly in 12-18 hours.  If the milk hasn't noticeably thickened within a day or so, it's less likely that it contains a significant number of active cultures (though not certain).  This is not a definitive test to rule out bacteria, but if the milk thickens noticeably, it's pretty likely the sour cream has some active cultures. 