News

Reminder: Brand names of peanut butter, one of America’s favorite foods, are safe.

If you are not eating, read the whole story about what FDA officials found in a Texas plant of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), the company which shipped contaminated goods and set off one of the biggest food recalls ever.

Clear direction to maintenance workers authorized to do their jobs properly could have prevented this.

PCA officials likely are going to do some time under hot lights at Congressional hearings. It will be fascinating to listen to how they explain dead mice, birds’ nests and roof leaks in their plant.

Nine deaths now are associated with the outbreak, at the last report.

The CDC also says that 677 people in 45 states were reported as sickened by salmonella.

This number is believed to underestimate the true effects of the contamination.

Doctors usually report only severe cases to the CDC. Patients who were affected but recovered fairly quickly are not believed to be included in the official total.

The total cost to food producers who unknowingly bought the contaminated product is not known but is expected to be many millions of dollars.

Reuters

“Dead mice and rodent droppings were found throughout a Texas plant run by a company whose peanut products caused one of the biggest food recalls in U.S. history, food inspectors reported on Tuesday.

“U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors who for the first time visited the Plainview, Texas, food processing plant run by Peanut Corporation of America were clearly disgusted by what they found last month.

“Effective measures are not being taken to exclude pests from the processing areas and protect against the contamination of food on the premises by pests,” the report reads.

“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 677 people in 45 states have been sickened in the outbreak of salmonella food poisoning, which is still going on, and which has been traced to two of the company’s plants in Georgia and Texas.

“So far, more than 2,833 products have been pulled from store shelves since mid-January, although not brand names of peanut butter, which are not affected.”

Source:  Reuters, March 3, 2009