Peanut butter found contaminated with salmonella, still sent

[chitoryu12]

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WASHINGTON (Jan. 28) – Roaches, mold, and signs of a leaking roof were among numerous problems federal inspectors uncovered at a Georgia peanut plant implicated in the national salmonella outbreak, the government said Wednesday.
Food and Drug Administration inspectors noted ten separate problem areas in the report, which the agency posted on the Internet.
The report also documented that the plant's owner, Peanut Corp. of America, found salmonella in a dozen internal tests of its products during the past two years. But managers at the plant shipped the peanut butter and peanut paste anyway after getting new tests. The FDA said the company did not initially disclose the first tests to investigators trying to solve the current salmonella outbreak.
Peanut products initially found to be contaminated with salmonella were shipped as recently as last September. Health officials started picking up signals of the outbreak a month later.
Separately, senior congressional and state officials called Wednesday for a federal probe of possible criminal violations at the Blakely, Ga. peanut processing plant.
The company's actions "can only be described as reprehensible and criminal," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who oversees FDA funding. "Not only did this company knowingly sell tainted products, it shopped for a laboratory that would provide the acceptable results they were seeking. This behavior represents the worst of our current food safety regulatory system."
In Georgia, the state's top agriculture official joined DeLauro in asking the Justice Department to determine if the case warrants criminal prosecution.
"They tried to hide it so they could sell it," said Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin. "Now they've caused a mammoth problem that could destroy their company — and it could destroy the peanut industry."
There was no immediate response from Peanut Corp., which owns the Blakely processing plant at the center of the investigation. The company has previously said it fully cooperated with the salmonella investigation.
More than 500 people have gotten sick in the outbreak, which is continuing, and has been linked to at least eight deaths. More than 390 products containing peanut butter or peanut paste have been recalled. They range from Asian-style cooking sauces, to ice cream, to dog treats. However, major national brands of peanut butter are not affected.
The peanut industry also condemned the company, portraying it as a rogue operator.
The FDA's findings "can only be seen as a clear and unconscionable action of one irresponsible manufacturer, which stands alone in an industry that strives to follow the most stringent food safety standards," Patrick Archer, president of the American Peanut Council, said in a statement.
The FDA inspection report is preliminary, and the agency said the findings do not represent a final judgment on the company's compliance with food safety laws and regulations.
But the report detailed problems which food safety experts say would be of concern.
For example, inspectors found open gaps as large as a half-inch by two-and-a-half feet at air conditioner intakes on the roof of the plant. Water stains were seen on the ceiling around the intakes and near skylights. The openings were above an area in which finished products were handled. Water leaks would be a problem because salmonella thrives in moist conditions.
Inspectors also found that plant did not take enough steps to prevent finished products from being contaminated by raw peanuts. Roasting is supposed to kill the bacteria, but raw peanuts can harbor salmonella.
Irvin, the Georgia agriculture official, said he was outraged by the company's actions and said a state criminal probe was possible. He would not, however, specify which Georgia laws the company may have violated for fear it would help the company start planning its defense.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers were drafting a plan to require foodmakers to report the results of internal inspections to state officials, something the peanut plant in Blakely wasn't required to do.

Bolding mine. I would DEFINATELY say this warrants criminal prosecution, no deliberation required. They're damn lucky nobody died, or else the plant owners would be facing manslaughter charges right now (Is that the proper charge when someone knowlingly sends contaminated food and kills someone with it?)

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Why do they even allow these internal corporate tests any validity at all? What do they think is going to happen if the company finds something's wrong? Does the government really think they are going to be honest and withold products or inform the regulators? Seems like giving responsibility to the person most likely to violate it.

[Dominus Atheos]

This is nearly identical to the tainted milk scandal the Chinese had. Seems to me the best way to resolve it would be to take a page out of their book and shoot the offenders, then bill their families for the bullets.

[Ekiqa]

Click me

More than 500 people have gotten sick in the outbreak, which is continuing, and has been linked to at least eight deaths.

Bolding mine. I would DEFINATELY say this warrants criminal prosecution, no deliberation required. They're damn lucky nobody died, or else the plant owners would be facing manslaughter charges right now (Is that the proper charge when someone knowlingly sends contaminated food and kills someone with it?)

Read your own article. 8 are already dead due to salmonella from the peanuts.

8 counts of manslaughter? You could probably argue for 2nd degree murder. They knew that what they were shipping was potentially deadly, yet they did it anyways.

[Johonebesus]

Why do they even allow these internal corporate tests any validity at all? What do they think is going to happen if the company finds something's wrong? Does the government really think they are going to be honest and withold products or inform the regulators? Seems like giving responsibility to the person most likely to violate it.

Because the republican party and its shills and apologists have spent decades convincing the public that a free market can solve all problems without government regulation. The last I heard the FDA is under-funded and under-staffed, and has hardly any power to enforce regulations besides strictly worded warnings and relatively puny fines. There shouldn't be any question as to the criminality of deliberately breaking food safety regulations. The executives ought to be convicted of murder. The only thing that will prevent this sort of thing is creating real punishments for violating safety regulations and giving the FDA the power to properly regulate the industry, enforce the law, and prosecute offenders. Arbitrarily executing the few who accidentally get caught isn't enough. Without real oversight and enforcement, many businesses will decide cutting corners is worth the small chance they might get caught.

[Haruko]

This is not surprising at all, and Johonebesus hit the issue right over the head. As I read in Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, the Republican Party has consistently been strengthening business' ability to get away with poor handling of food while continually taking away the ability and strength of the agencies that are supposed to be responsible for preventing shit like the recent one described in the opening post of this topic. The businesses that do this don't even have to inform anyone of the reason their food is being recalled; no announcement of any sort. Your baby died because of salmonella poisoning? Oh, well, the glories of the free market have consequences. The people who say that you should just take a fucking chance with your food should be able to comfort the mother.

[Darth Wong]

According to free-market dogma, this should have been impossible. No company would ever do this because it would harm their own long-term self-interest to take such a risk with public safety.

That's the problem with libertarians: their confidence in their model is absolutely unaffected by empirical evidence which grossly contradicts their predictions. This is why it should be considered a religion.

[Aratech]

According to free-market dogma, this should have been impossible. No company would ever do this because it would harm their own long-term self-interest to take such a risk with public safety.

That's the problem with libertarians: their confidence in their model is absolutely unaffected by empirical evidence which grossly contradicts their predictions. This is why it should be considered a religion.

Logically speaking, this would utterly ravage longterm interests in this company. Which is why I am confused as to why they did it. I'm not an economic expert by any means, but from what I'm seeing, the short term gains do not make up for the loss of confidence in the product, the cost of litigation and courts, and the amount of lawsuits that this is going to open up. \

*scratches head*

[Darth Wong]

According to free-market dogma, this should have been impossible. No company would ever do this because it would harm their own long-term self-interest to take such a risk with public safety.

That's the problem with libertarians: their confidence in their model is absolutely unaffected by empirical evidence which grossly contradicts their predictions. This is why it should be considered a religion.

Logically speaking, this would utterly ravage longterm interests in this company. Which is why I am confused as to why they did it. I'm not an economic expert by any means, but from what I'm seeing, the short term gains do not make up for the loss of confidence in the product, the cost of litigation and courts, and the amount of lawsuits that this is going to open up. \

*scratches head*

(sigh) This is not complicated. All you need to remember are three things:

1) Humans are not very logical.
2) Humans are not good at thinking of the long-term.
3) Collective self-interest and individual self-interest are two different things.

These three facts explain why reality does not conform to libertarian dogma. The managers were not thinking of long-term consequences. Their risk perception is also illogical. Moreover, they did not perceive that the company's collective self-interest was necessarily identical to their own personal self-interest: if a manager harms the business profit for public health he receives no reward, but if he increases business profit at the expense of public health, he gets a bonus, or at the very least, he avoids being fired by profit-hungry shareholders who couldn't care less about public safety because of diffusion of responsibility.

PS. These are the exact same reasons why Marxism doesn't work either.

[aerius]

Logically speaking, this would utterly ravage longterm interests in this company. Which is why I am confused as to why they did it. I'm not an economic expert by any means, but from what I'm seeing, the short term gains do not make up for the loss of confidence in the product, the cost of litigation and courts, and the amount of lawsuits that this is going to open up.

If one of the execs wasn't exactly a righteous person and thought he could pocket an extra $5 million from taking shortcuts on product safety, he'd do it. Think about it, cut a few corners, pocket shitloads of money, and maybe some faceless people you'll never meet might get hurt or die. Easy choice if you're a sociopath, which a large number of business execs are.

[Darth Wong]

They don't have to be sociopaths; they just need a generous dose of "it won't happen to me" syndrome, which most people unfortunately have. Why do you think so many people drive unsafely? It's not as if they don't care whether they have an accident; they just have an irrational belief that there's a guardian angel watching over them or something.

These people probably thought that people might get a little sick but not die, and that it wouldn't get connected back to them. Really, how many people get sick and it never occurs to them that it might have been something they ate?

[Ekiqa]

(sigh) This is not complicated. All you need to remember are three things:

1) Humans are not very logical.
2) Humans are not good at thinking of the long-term.
3) Collective self-interest and individual self-interest are two different things.

These three facts explain why reality does not conform to libertarian dogma. The managers were not thinking of long-term consequences. Their risk perception is also illogical. Moreover, they did not perceive that the company's collective self-interest was necessarily identical to their own personal self-interest: if a manager harms the business profit for public health he receives no reward, but if he increases business profit at the expense of public health, he gets a bonus, or at the very least, he avoids being fired by profit-hungry shareholders who couldn't care less about public safety because of diffusion of responsibility.

PS. These are the exact same reasons why Marxism doesn't work either.

Also, the likelihood of significant costs to the company and those responsible are minimal. Probably a million dollar fine, if that.

[Coyote]

Now the US Army is pulling its stocks of peanut butter in select meal types:

Peanut plant problem forces fresh recall
U.S. Army the latest to pull items in ever-growing list reaching back to 2007

Jan. 28: The FDA said Wednesday that they found multiple problems, including mold, roaches and leaking roofs, at the Georgia peanut plant implicated in the national salmonella outbreak. NBC's Robert Bazell reports.

Worried about salmonella, the Army said Thursday it's removing some peanut butter items from warehouses in Europe, the latest in an ever-growing list of recalled peanut products linked to a national salmonella outbreak.

Already more than 430 kinds of cakes, cookies and other goods in the civilian world have been pulled off store shelves in what the Food and Drug Administration is calling one of the largest product recalls in memory. The Army's recall does not affect Meals-Ready-to-Eat, but another kind of military grub called Unitized Group Rations-A, which provide a complete 50-person meal.

Would you like to know more?

[Darth Wong]

Also, the likelihood of significant costs to the company and those responsible are minimal. Probably a million dollar fine, if that.

You're neglecting the idea that the public will punish them for their behaviour, which is the major idea behind libertarian economics. Of course, you're right to do so, because the public won't punish them for their behaviour. Most of the time, behaviour like this comes from second-tier suppliers, not the brand names you buy directly from. The biggest brand names themselves can wash their hands of responsibility by saying that it wasn't their fault and that they won't buy from supplier X again, and supplier X can say they're under "new management" and quietly resume supplying those brands once the smoke blows over.

[Ekiqa]

Also, the likelihood of significant costs to the company and those responsible are minimal. Probably a million dollar fine, if that.

You're neglecting the idea that the public will punish them for their behaviour, which is the major idea behind libertarian economics. Of course, you're right to do so, because the public won't punish them for their behaviour. Most of the time, behaviour like this comes from second-tier suppliers, not the brand names you buy directly from. The biggest brand names themselves can wash their hands of responsibility by saying that it wasn't their fault and that they won't buy from supplier X again, and supplier X can say they're under "new management" and quietly resume supplying those brands once the smoke blows over.

They dont even need to be under new management. Look at Maple Leaf Foods here. Another factory shut down due to listeriosis. All they did was run a bunch of ads saying how much they cared about their products, when really, all they care about is how much they can profit.

[Johonebesus]

(sigh) This is not complicated. All you need to remember are three things:

1) Humans are not very logical.
2) Humans are not good at thinking of the long-term.
3) Collective self-interest and individual self-interest are two different things.

These three facts explain why reality does not conform to libertarian dogma. The managers were not thinking of long-term consequences. Their risk perception is also illogical. Moreover, they did not perceive that the company's collective self-interest was necessarily identical to their own personal self-interest: if a manager harms the business profit for public health he receives no reward, but if he increases business profit at the expense of public health, he gets a bonus, or at the very least, he avoids being fired by profit-hungry shareholders who couldn't care less about public safety because of diffusion of responsibility.

PS. These are the exact same reasons why Marxism doesn't work either.

The irony is that much of the empirical evidence that humans are irrational in their decision making, both individually and collectively, comes from economists studying the psychology of choice to better calibrate marketing techniques. Any economist can tell you that consumers are irrational and can be easily persuaded to choose short term pleasure over long term security, and yet so many seem to think that when consumers sit down behind a desk and become executives, they suddenly become perfectly rational, far seeing decision makers.