February 6, 2009
Peanut Supplier Banned From Federal Business
By MICHAEL FALCONE
NY Times

WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department on Thursday banned the company
implicated in the nationwide contamination of peanut products from doing
business with the federal government. At least eight people have died
and hundreds have been sickened after eating tainted products.

The order, which affects the Peanut Corporation of America and a
subsidiary, will remain in force for one year. Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack also stripped the company’s chief executive of his seat on a
board that advises the government on peanut quality standards.

David Shipman, an acting administrator at the Agriculture Department,
said, “The actions of P.C.A. indicate that the company lacks business
integrity and business honesty, which seriously and directly hinders its
ability to do business with the federal government.”

The department’s actions came on a day when senators heard testimony
from health experts and a Food and Drug Administration official, who
acknowledged that gaps in the food safety system had contributed to
delays in catching the outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter and other
products that spread to 43 states. The problem has been traced to a
peanut processing facility in Blakely, Ga.

***Dr. Stephen Sundlof, the director of food safety programs at the
F.D.A., told the Senate Agriculture Committee that the agency’s
investigation was hindered in part by the absence of laws requiring
companies to report contamination at processing facilities. Dr. Sundlof
said food makers were required to tell the agency about safety issues
only after shipping products.***

The food and drug agency and the Justice Department are conducting a
criminal investigation into whether the Peanut Corporation of America
knowingly sold contaminated products. The company has denied it acted
illegally, and as recently as Wednesday asserted that inspectors had
given the Blakely plant a “superior” rating last year.

Federal oficials on Thursday recalled thousands of food kits with peanut
butter that had been sent to aid victims of the Kentucky ice storms.

At Thursday’s hearing, Gabrielle Meunier of South Burlington, Vt., whose
7-year-old son, Christopher, had to be hospitalized after exposure to
salmonella bacteria, likened the country’s approach to food safety to “a
game of Russian roulette.”

The committee chairman, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, called on
President Obama to put “the weight of his office” behind reforming the
federal government’s system for detecting food contamination.

This week, Mr. Obama said his administration would thoroughly review the
operations of the F.D.A. and complained that the agency had been slow
responding to food safety problems.

Still, Dr. Sundlof said, “the American food supply continues to be among
the safest in the world.”

But Mr. Harkin lamented that the recall of products poisoned with
salmonella had led to safety questions about “basic items like peanut
butter.”

Mr. Harkin, who used a peanut butter sandwich and a jar of peanut butter
as props during the hearing, added, “If that’s not safe, we have to ask,
what is?”


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"...absence of laws requiring companies to report contamination at
processing facilities."


Not for long, I bet.