WASHINGTON — Peanut Corp. of America sold 32 truckloads of roasted peanuts and peanut butter to the federal government for a free-lunch program for poor children even as the company’s internal tests showed its products were contaminated with salmonella bacteria.
Thursday, the Department of Agriculture abruptly suspended its contract with the company, which is at the center of an ongoing salmonella outbreak that has killed eight people, sickened 575 and triggered one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history.
The fact that a federal agency that shares responsibility for keeping food safe was among the thousands of customers that may have received tainted food from the small Blakely, Ga., plant is the latest revelation in a scandal that has exposed an array of failures in systems for keeping deadly pathogens out of food.
Schools in California, Minnesota and Idaho received the peanut products from January to November 2007, said Susan Acker, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department.
Peanut Corp. of America found salmonella in its products 12 times in 2007 and 2008, but the company sold them anyway, sometimes after getting a negative test result from a different laboratory, federal officials say.
Results were kept confidential; companies and laboratories are not required to alert health officials when pathogens are found in foods. Federal investigators say the company never cleaned its equipment or plant after learning of the salmonella.
The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation. A company spokeswoman did not return messages Thursday.
The peanut scare has revealed so many weak spots in the regulatory system that it is serving as a kind of road map for reform, experts said.
“I’ve been doing food safety for a long time, and I don’t think I’ve seen an outbreak or a reported set of behaviors by a company that better demonstrates the fundamental problems of food safety,” said Mi chael Taylor, a former top official with the Food and Drug Administration. “There are so many failures on so many levels.”
The FDA, which is responsible for regulating peanut-processing plants, last inspected the plant in 2001, when it only roasted and blanched peanuts. The agency learned the company was making peanut butter in 2006, when it was notified by the state of Georgia.
Scare raises senator’s ire
WASHINGTON — Fixing the nation’s food-safety woes may not be possible this year unless President Barack Oba ma makes it a top priority, a senior lawmaker warned after a hearing Thursday exposed loopholes in government oversight that contributed to the ongoing national salmonella outbreak.
“I hope President Obama puts the weight of his office behind this,” Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said. “It’s going to require them to be actively pushing on this. This is a matter that we can’t continue to put off.”
At a Senate hearing Thursday, lawmakers reacted angrily when told that food companies and state safety inspectors don’t have to report to the FDA when test results find pathogens in a processing plant.
The Associated Press
