Peanut Butter Manifesto
(Factory Food • Government)
I got up early, re-read the Food and Drug Administration’s investigation report quoted below, and went through the kitchen cupboards for the second time in less than two years, on the lookout for salmonella-infested peanut products that might poison my kids.
It struck me how odd it’s become: The same companies whose food products we’ve been marketed into feeling so warm and fuzzy about over the years are, wittingly or unwittingly, perfectly capable of making us violently sick or even killing us with those very same grocery items.
And it turns out that the regulatory front line of defense against food-borne plague and pestilence some of us hoped the likes of the FDA and Centers for Disease Control represented was in the end little more than an illusory veneer of protection, put in place at least as much for the benefit of industry giants as our own.
I have to draw those conclusions when a guy like Peanut Corporation of America President Stewart Parnell tells me, with words faintly echoing public-relations crisis advice, that he has been “devastated” by the awful turn of events in which more than 500 people got salmonella poisoning and eight died. That he and his folks are “working alongside state and federal food safety experts in every way we can to help them protect consumers” and “taking extraordinary measures, out of an abundance of caution, to identify and recall all products that have been identified as potential risks.”
Yet when I look at his deeds I see a plant that maybe didn’t even start testing its own peanut products for salmonella until Conagra’s Peter Pan brand was found to contain the germ, in a major 2007 recall that also sickened several hundred people before anyone could stop it. Coincidence?
Then, when PCA did start testing for salmonella in its peanut butter and paste at its Blakely, Ga., plant, it found salmonella. Not only did it not throw out the tainted samples and the lots they came from, “out of an abundance of caution to protect consumers,” Parnell’s company ran tests until it could show a negative result for salmonella – then shipped the poison out for the American consumer to play Russian Roulette with at his or her favorite grocery store.
But my favorite was the part in the FDA inspection report where the company found salmonella in paste that came from a particular factory line, and not only went for more lab tests until obtaining a negative result, and shipped the suspect peanut butter out for mass consumption by the hapless masses. No, then Parnell’s company couldn’t even be bothered to slow down long enough to clean off the factory line where known salmonella-laced paste had been created. They just kept letting the product become recontaminated until Jan. 9, 2009 – more than three months later.
That’s when the FDA showed up at the plant for the first time since 2001, by the FDA’s own account.
Regardless, Peanut Corporation of America’s Blakely, Ga., plant was identified as a “high-risk facility” and “elevated in inspection priority in 2006,” according to an FDA doctor. And what does the FDA do with high-risk facilities?
“And then the agency contracted with the Georgia Department of Agriculture to conduct inspections on its behalf in 2006,” the FDA doctor said yesterday.
The FDA has been conducting a series of media conference calls during which members of the media have been asking some very good questions that FDA and CDC officials have treated like fire – they’ve stopped, dropped and rolled. For instance:
Coordinator: Scott Bronstein from CNN your line is open.Scott Bronstein: Yes thank you. Some food safety experts blame FDA and CDC for not properly regulating this plant and other plants that have had problems. I’d like to hear both from Dr. Sundlof and Dr. Tauxe, do you take any responsibility for allowing this outbreak to happen? Do you think that the regulatory procedures have not protected the public?
Stephen Sundlof: This is Steve Sundlof. And again I want to reiterate some of the remarks I’ve made in the previous media calls. And that is that it is the responsibility of the industry to produce safe product.
The FDA is not in plants on a continuous basis. We do rely on inspections to find problems when they exist. There, again, there is – when it’s just as if it were, you know, an individual citizen.
We expect individual citizens to obey the law. And occasionally people don’t obey the law. And when they don’t obey the law then the responsibility of the regulatory authorities is to take the appropriate enforcement action.
And that is what we were doing, we are doing now. I will let Dr. Tauxe speak for CDC. But I would just say that, you know, we without the CDC out there continuously monitoring, using some very sophisticated surveillance techniques and DNA fingerprinting…And with the states helping us in that regard, it’s – we are able to identify outbreaks much quicker then we could in the past.
All of which is to say that while a veritable buttload of lawyers no doubt will descend like locusts upon Parnell, his personal assets will remain safe behind the corporate shield, and no one will even suggest jail time.
Meanwhile, while the Georgia peanut processing plant was chugging out salmonella cakes, Parnell and his partner in the plant had managed to triple its revenue in the first three years of his ownership.
Parnell used to say so himself, in a history page on the PCA web site, which appears to have been removed for some reason on or about Jan. 11 – or so it appears from one of those pesky web-page archives.
It looks to me like Parnell and PCA can shut down the Blakely House of Horrors and just move on out here to Texas, where the company either has finished, or is working to finish a plant near Plainview.
“With the help from several past business associates in this area, we are about to relocate to Plainview and couldn’t be happier about it,” Parnell used to say on his web site. “We sincerely look forward to growing and expanding our business in the Plainview area and welcome the opportunity to becoming a respected part of this community.”
To which I can at present only offer a hearty “howdy, neighbor!”
→ B.Dunn, Jan 29, 2009, 04 03 am
Mr. Dunn,
You are an early riser…..you have amazing writing skills…I’m curious – does the FDA and the GDA just get nasty looks and “naughty boy” comments here??????When is the EVIDENCE being presented confirming that the deaths resulted from this peanut butter????I tend to want facts myself. Thank you.
— e davis Jan 29, 08:38 pm #
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while you are a very learned individual, i am very saddened that you “assume” what you have read, heard and seen from the press is fact. firstly, the peanut products that were found to contain salmonella were NOT shipped out to any grocery store in the world. it was shipped out “NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION”. secondly, all individuals who have unfortunately passed away have NOT been deemed to have died from the peanut product. they were in fact infirmed individuals who were very sick previously in nursing homes. catalyst for their death?? don’t know that and probably never will. they were close to death at that point. nonetheless, the media has certainly made even you as a researcher of fact believe the plant was careless and reckless in their actions.
This is a horrible thing that has happened, no doubt – but not one done with malice or intent or even carelessness. if you truly wanted to jump on the media bandwagon(which you have already so recklessly done) for a horrid and despicable activity, then visit some “corporate livestock farms” and “corporate chicken farms”…then you can rant about the true disgust and sickness that is “for the American consumer to play Russian Roulette with at his or her favorite grocery store.” i wonder how many people are violently sickened each year by hormone, antibiotic and god knows what else injected animals raised for consumption by the corporate farms. hmmm. organic farmers don’t raise under such horrific conditions, but i digress.
the point is, PCA and the blakely, ga plant and employees have had their lives destroyed by our very own medias careless reporting….sensationalism is the root of all evil…not avarice…and our media commits this evil on a daily basis. if the ENTIRE story were told, you would most certainly have a VERY different view on this instance.
thank you for your time and please, please remember next time to do a little investigative digging yourself, rather than regurgitate horrible national journalism at its worst.
— michael Jan 29, 08:57 pm #
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e davis,
The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control themselves have provided this evidence. Sorry, I thought this was so widely known that it didn’t require more backup, but here it is. From today’s FDA web site:
“A combination of epidemiological analysis and laboratory testing by state officials in Minnesota and Connecticut, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have enabled FDA to confirm that the sources of the outbreak of illnesses caused by Salmonella Typhimurium are peanut butter and peanut paste produced by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) at its Blakely, Georgia processing plant.”
And from the Centers for Disease Control this morning, updated numbers: 529 contracted salmonella poisoning, in 43 states. In documents on the FDA site you’ll find an increasing number of deaths so far attributed to the outbreak, with the final number so far being eight. No one among the government inspection agencies is disputing it originated in peanut products made at the PCA plant in Georgia. The FDA has found four separate strains of salmonella there so far.
Again, from the CDC web site:
“An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Health suggested King Nut brand creamy peanut butter as a likely source of Salmonella infections among many ill persons in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture Laboratory isolated the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium from an open 5-pound container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter. King Nut creamy peanut butter is distributed in many states to establishments such as long-term care facilities, hospitals, schools, universities, restaurants, delis, cafeterias, and bakeries. It is not sold directly to consumers and is not known to be distributed for retail sale in grocery stores.
The Connecticut Department of Public Health Laboratory and the Georgia Department of Agriculture independently isolated Salmonella from unopened 5-pound containers of King Nut brand peanut butter. Officials in Connecticut have identified the Salmonella found in their container as the outbreak strain. Further tests are pending in Georgia to determine if the Salmonella in their container is also the outbreak strain.
The Michigan Department of Community Health isloated Salmonella from an unopened 5-pound container of King Nut brand peanut butter. They have identified the Salmonella found in their container as the outbreak strain.
To date, 16 clusters of infections in five states have been reported in schools and other institutions, such as long-term care facilities and hospitals. King Nut brand peanut butter was present in all facilities.
King Nut is produced by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) in Blakely, Georgia. This facility, which is no longer producing any products, has expanded its recall to include all peanut butter and peanut paste produced at this plant since July 1, 2008. Peanut butter and peanut butter paste was not sold directly to consumers but was distributed to institutions, food service providers, food manufacturers and distributors in many states and countries. Peanut butter and peanut paste is commonly used as an ingredient in many products, including cookies, crackers, cereal, candy, ice cream, pet treats, and other foods.”
— Bob Jan 30, 05:45 am #
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Michael,
I am truly sorry for the workers at the Blakely plant, and I’m certain none of their actions was carried out with malice.
I cannot say the same for upper plant management and the owners. It’s their business to understand food safety regulations and to carry them out, for the protection of the humans who end up consuming the products going out of the plant.
I am assuming nothing from media reports. If you follow the links in the post above, you’ll see that they lead to actual FDA inspection reports and to transcripts of conference calls conducted and attended by FDA and CDC officials. The information about PCA’s Texas plans comes from the company’s own web site.
You are correct that the Blakely plant’s products weren’t directly shipped to grocery stores. But more than 400 food products on the shelves of America’s grocery stores contain those products from the Blakely plant. Thus, it is very true that my family and yours was playing Russian Roulette when we went shopping. Buy the wrong package of snack crackers made with the wrong lot of peanut paste and contract salmonella.
As for the deaths associated with the outbreak, the CDC and FDA has found that they contracted salmonella before they died. It is true that most or all of those who died were elderly (nursing homes are among the institutions that receive re-branded peanut butter made in Blakely). So while you are probably correct in the sense that the death certificates may not list salmonella as the cause, the FDA itself reports a connection. And I’m sure you would agree that even the old and infirm deserve unadulterated food.
I absolutely agree with you about feedlots and corporate-owned chicken farmss. I’ve seen both, and I agree there’s a huge potential for a major health catastrophe involving either of those ag-industrial segments. Even worse, imagine the results if one of the major field corn processing plants slipped up, as processed corn and all its many by-products (such as corn syrup and fructose) are spread across the entire food universe.
Again, if you follow the links in the post on which you’re commenting, you’ll find the sources for my reporting are almost all direct investigative documents or statements from the FDA and CDC.
— Bob Jan 30, 06:16 am #
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