eCigs... they may help your loved one stop smoking... check it out
The Peanut Muders or Free Market Capitalism after 8 Years of Neo Conservatism... Peanuts anyone? Children Love it!
WASHINGTON – As far back as 2007, salmonella-laced products were shipped by a Georgia peanut company that knew the peanuts probably were tainted and sometimes after tests confirmed that contamination, inspection records show.
Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers' health.
Food and Drug Administration officials earlier had said Peanut Corp. of America waited for a second test to clear peanut butter and peanuts that initially were positive for salmonella. But the agency amended its report Friday, saying that the Blakely, Ga., plant actually shipped some products before receiving the second test and sold others after confirming salmonella.
In 2007, the company shipped chopped peanuts on July 18 and 24 after salmonella was confirmed by private lab tests, the FDA report said. Peanut Corp. sold products "on or after the positive salmonella results were obtained."
In other cases, the company didn't wait for a second round of salmonella tests.
"In some instances, peanut products were shipped by (the company) prior to having assurance that the products were negative for salmonella," said Michael Rogers, head of field investigations for the FDA.
Rogers said the FDA made the discovery after a more detailed analysis of records submitted by the company.
The salmonella outbreak has been blamed for at least eight deaths and 575 illnesses in 43 states. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. More than 1,550 products have been recalled. My note... these numbers are much higher now
Wary consumers are shunning all brands of peanut butter, even those not caught up in the massive recall, driving sales down by nearly 25 percent, The New York Times reported Saturday.
A Peanut Corp. lawyer said the company is investigating what happened at the plant and had no comment on the latest FDA findings.
"We have not made a determination yet on liability," said attorney Amy Rotenberg. "We are neither denying or admitting liability at this point. We are still investigating."
Peanut Corp. previously said it "categorically denies any allegations" that it sought lab results that would put its products in a favorable light.
Problems at the plant are not new. FDA inspectors found in 2001 that products potentially were exposed to insecticides, one of several violations uncovered during the last visit federal officials made before the current food-poisoning scare, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press.
Also on Friday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said he supports merging the nation's food-safety system into one agency. His department shares duties now with the FDA.
The USDA abruptly suspended all business with the company this week. It shipped some of the company's potentially contaminated peanut butter and peanuts to eight states, including school lunch programs in California, Minnesota and Idaho in 2007. None of the states reported illnesses as a result of people eating the products, agency officials said.
Some of the problems FDA discovered at the plant in 2001 are similar to those found last month, when federal inspectors returned to the plant after nearly eight years.
The 2001 inspection found dead insects near peanuts and holes in the plant big enough for rodents to enter. Those inspectors also discovered that workers at the plant used an insecticide fogger in food-processing areas and didn't wash the exposed equipment. They also found dirty duct tape wrapped on broken equipment.
Inspectors did not find evidence of insecticides in peanuts at the plant during the 2001 visit. Company officials told them the fogger was last used two weeks earlier, according to the inspection report.
The USDA was one of Peanut Corp.'s two biggest clients at the time. USDA officials also regularly visited the plant, including in recent years. But those agency workers were not trained to perform food safety inspections, USDA spokesman Jerry Redding said.
The USDA visits to the plant were made by "contract auditors" who are "number crunchers," Redding said, who know nothing about peanuts. They only visited to review records, he said.
Plant owner Stewart Parnell told FDA inspectors in 2001 that USDA officials knew about the insecticide fogger and approved use of the duct tape on broken equipment, the FDA inspection report says. The insecticide fogger discovered by inspectors noted on its labels that any exposed equipment should be thoroughly washed after use. Plant workers covered some areas and told inspectors that no peanuts were in any equipment when the foggers were used at night.
The plant manager told inspectors that workers didn't clean the exposed areas and didn't realize the insecticide couldn't be used around food. Duh?
Parnell promised that he would correct the problems because he "wanted to assure us that he wanted his firm to be in compliance," FDA inspectors wrote. Parnell told inspectors that the insecticide's "labeling had been changed and they had not been aware of the change," according to the FDA report.
He and the plant manager said the company was assured by the insecticide supplier that the chemical was safe for use in food areas.
FDA officials said Friday the company was allowed in 2001 to fix the problems on its own because the inspection showed no evidence that finished products were being contaminated.
Follow up
WASHINGTON – The owner of a peanut company urged his workers to ship tainted products after receiving test results identifying salmonella, according to internal company e-mails disclosed Wednesday by a House committee.
The company e-mails obtained by the House panel showed that Peanut Corp. of America owner Stewart Parnell ordered the shipments tainted with the bacteria because he was worried about lost sales.
Parnell was ordered by subpoena to appear before Congress on Wednesday to discuss the outbreak that has led to 600 illnesses, eight deaths and one of the largest recalls in history, more than 1,800 products pulled. His Georgia plant is blamed for the outbreak.
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., revealed the internal correspondence from the company during a House Energy and Commerce hearing.
In prepared testimony, a laboratory owner told the House panel that the peanut company's disregard for tests identifying salmonella in its product is "virtually unheard of" in the nation's food industry and should prompt efforts to increase federal oversight of product safety.
Charles Deibel, president of Deibel Laboratories Inc., said his company was among those that tested Peanut Corp. of America's products and notified the Georgia plant that salmonella was found in some of its peanut stock. Peanut Corp. sold the products anyway, according to a Food and Drug Administration inspection report.
"It is not unusual for Deibel Labs or other food testing laboratories to find that samples clients submit do test positive for salmonella and other pathogens, nor is it unusual that clients request that samples be retested," Deibel said in prepared testimony to a House subcommittee. "What is virtually unheard of is for an entity to disregard those results and place potentially contaminated products into the stream of commerce."
Deibel said he hopes the crisis leads to a greater role for FDA in overseeing food safety and providing more guidance to food makers.
Lawmakers want to hear from Parnell, who was ordered by subpoena to appear Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce's oversight subcommittee.
The investigation is starting to zero in on the question of who was responsible.
"Hopefully, people are going to be held accountable," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee's investigations panel.
Stupak says he wants know how Peanut Corp. managed to sell allegedly tainted goods month after month without triggering action by state and federal health authorities.
The company, now under FBI investigation, makes only about 1 percent of U.S. peanut products. But its ingredients are used by dozens of other food companies.
Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could harm consumers' health. Again Duh?
Peanut Corp.'s troubles mounted this week as the FBI raided corporate headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., as well as the Georgia plant. On Monday night, the company closed a second facility, in Plainview, Texas, after test results earlier in the day indicated salmonella was present in samples taken at the Texas plant. None of the products had been distributed to consumers, but the finding raised the prospect of a broader recall.
Further testing is needed to confirm the results, said Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
After the results came back Monday, the FDA sent inspectors back to the Texas plant to check more thoroughly for signs of problems similar to those found at the Georgia plant, which has been identified as the source of the salmonella outbreak.
The company has said it is still investigating what happened and has expressed regret and concern for people who became ill. It is not clear whether Parnell will testify Wednesday or assert his constitutional right to not answer questions that may incriminate him.
PLAINVIEW, Texas – Texas health officials shuttered a peanut plant operated by a company at the center of a national salmonella outbreak and ordered it to recall all products after inspectors found dead rodents, feces and feathers above a production area.
The Texas Department of Health and Human Services issued the order Thursday after finding a filth-infested crawl space at the Peanut Corp. of America plant. During an inspection Wednesday, officials also found that an air handling system was pulling debris from the crawl space into areas where dry roasted peanuts, peanut meal and granulated peanuts were processed.
The volume of products that would need to be pulled back was not immediately known. Many of the plant's customers — mostly manufacturers — had already begun holding products back or running their own tests.
The plant in the Panhandle city of Plainview, which employs about 30 people, must close indefinitely after operating unlicensed and uninspected for nearly four years since it opened in 2005.
Health department spokesman Doug McBride said it was up to Peanut Corp. to inform its clients of the recall, but it wasn't immediately clear if the company was complying. Phone messages seeking comment from the company weren't returned, and no information regarding the Texas action was posted on the company's site.
The Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corp. is already under federal investigation in connection with the salmonella outbreak that has sickened 600 people and may have caused at least nine deaths nationwide. More than 2,000 possibly contaminated consumer products had already been recalled in one of the largest product recalls ever.
Federal investigators last month identified a Georgia peanut processing plant operated by Peanut Corp. as the source of the salmonella outbreak. The Plainview plant, run by Peanut Corp. subsidiary Plainview Peanut Co., had not had a state health inspection until after problems arose at the Georgia plant.
Officials at the Plainview plant had voluntarily stopped production Monday after initial lab tests showed likely salmonella contamination. Further testing was needed to confirm the results, but the health department said Thursday that its orders are not contingent on finding salmonella.
Calls to the home listed as the residence of the plant manager went unanswered late Thursday. No one answered the door.
David W. Evans, executive director of the Hale County Industrial Foundation, said the company was lured to the area with tax breaks and incentives for maintaining an employee quota. He said that quota wasn't met. My note...Bastards
However, the plant's presence in Plainview was small. About 1,000 people work at a nearby Wal-Mart distribution plant, and a Cargill meatpacking plant a couple of miles away employs nearly 1,500.
Kenneth Kendrick, who worked as an assistant manager at the plant for several months in 2006, said Thursday that he had sent as many as six e-mails to the state health department while he worked there.
He said his complaints chronicled a leaking roof, which he knew could be a problem because of bird excrement.
"Anything nasty you can think of comes from water off a roof," said Kendrick, who said he left the plant voluntarily.
Kendrick said his initial complaints about the plant spurred no action. Last month, he complained again to state officials after his grandchildren became sick after eating peanut butter crackers.
The federal government has opened a criminal investigation into the company, and its president, Stewart Parnell, repeatedly refused to answer questions Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, which is seeking ways to prevent another outbreak.
A message left seeking comment from Parnell Thursday wasn't immediately returned.
State law allows the Department of State Health Services to issue such recall orders when it finds conditions that it says pose "an immediate and serious threat to human life or health."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which sent inspectors back to the plant after Monday's test result, said in an e-mail that its investigation there was continuing.
Many companies hadn't waited for state or federal officials to take action. Robert Grauer, president of In a Nut Shell, a San Leandro, Calif., said his company decided to hold back about 200 cases of peanuts from the Texas plant before the order was issued.
"We're not going to take a chance risking our customers — not over some peanuts," he said.
A handful of Whole Foods Market supermarkets in northern California that received products containing peanuts from the Texas plant pulled from them from shelves two days before the Texas recall "in an overabundance of caution," said Libba Letton, spokeswoman for the Austin, Texas-based company.
Capitalism
