MISSING MEAT

Clarissa Kell-Holland of Land Line Magazine and I spoke today about the finding of the E. coli-tainted truck.  As she reported, the refrigerated trailer reported stolen from the American Fresh Foods parking lot in Fort Worth, Texas, has been found in Dallas.  However, more than 80 percent of the trailer’s 14,800 pounds of ground meat products – including some that tested positive for E. coli bacteria – are still missing.  The focus now is on protecting consumers who may have been “persuaded to buy beef products under questionable circumstances” like roadside stands or in parking lots, according to Agi Schafer, spokeswoman for American Fresh Foods.  I guess no one wanted the $10,000 reward.

So, I guess the questions for American Fresh Foods are several, but the ones that "poop" into mind are:

1.  What were you doing with E. coli-tainted hamburger sitting in your parking lot?

2.  What were you going to do with it?  Was it going to be destroyed?  Were you going to sell it as cooked product?

3.  Given that E. coli-tainted hamburger is a danger, how was someone able to back a big rig up to the trailer and drive it off your property?

4.  Because you knew the hamburger was adulterated by testing, I can assume that you have done genetic fingerprinting (PFGE) on the offending bug?  This will be helpful if people start showing up in ER’s with bloody stool.  If their stool is tested, and found to have E. coli, and if a PFGE is done, perhaps you can figure out who stole the truck by figuring out who sold the poisoned meat?  (CSI Dallas)