Thursday, February 05 2009, 10:00am – 12:00pm

Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry

Examination of Federal Food Safety Oversight in the Wake of Peanut Products Recall

Date: Thursday, February 5, 2009

Time: 10:00 a.m.

Place: 216 Hart Senate Office Building

Panel I

Dr. Stephen Sundlof
Director, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for
Food…

I am looking forward to sending subpoeans to the "food safety" auditors of Peanut Corporation of America.  Again, save those documents all.

For weeks now, I have been hammering on all involved in this outbreak for full disclosure and transparency. Now, bit, by painful bit, the facts are slowly coming out. The sixth item on…

Had a good talk this evening with Newsday reporter, Sarah Crichton, who I believe might well have been “Miss Peanut Australia” not long ago. We talked about the latest unfortunate episode in the unfolding saga of what amounts to a food safety train wreck.

An outbreak that has sickened over 500 and killed eight…

When foodborne illness outbreaks occur, the source of the contamination is not always clear. Lawyers pursuing foodborne illness claims must carefully determine the applicable laws and identify the party that brought the product to market.

These days, ready-to-eat produce is more popular than ever. Unfortunately for the American populace, prepackaged produce often carries a risk of harboring foodborne pathogens. Due to large-scale production and distribution, prepackaged produce that is tainted has the potential to affect thousands of consumers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), foodborne illness kills 5,000 people in the United States every year.1

With the advancing sophistication of scientific detection and investigation methods, one can hope that the root causes of food product defects will be easier to identify in the years to come. In the interim, the legal system remains the only avenue of recovery for consumers injured by foodborne diseases.
The United States has seen several foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years, including a 2008 salmonella outbreak linked to raw tomatoes and peppers that sickened 1,442 people in 43 states,2 a 2006 E. coli outbreak that was later linked to Dole brand baby spinach and resulted in 204 confirmed E. coli cases,3 and a 2002 E. coli outbreak linked to ConAgra brand ground beef, in which nearly 19 million pounds of beef were recalled.4 Perhaps the most well-known foodborne illness outbreak in the United States was a 1993 E. coli outbreak associated with the Jack in the Box restaurant chain that left more than 700 people ill and four children dead.5

Every foodborne illness outbreak presents unique circumstances. The 2006 Dole outbreak was notable, however, for the FDA’s success in tracing the source of the contamination to a particular growing area and finding the outbreak strain present there. The Dole outbreak highlights some of the essential steps to conducting food products liability litigation, including determining the applicable body of law, the entities subject to strict liability, the indemnity and insurance issues involved, the role third-party defendants might play, and the extent to which the defendant knew about the risk of contamination.Continue Reading FEATURE – American Association of Justice Trial Magazine – “Serving up trouble” – William D. Marler Esq.

Talk about kicking a guy when he is down?  Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) is facing lawsuits, criminal sanctions and a Congressional hearing and then Hartford today files a Declaratory Judgment Action against it.  Frankly, I read this suit several times and still do not see what the fight is about.  Bottom line – its…