WASHINGTON — Officials from Peanut Corporation of America subpoenaed to testify before Congress refused to answer questions Wednesday after lawmakers revealed that internal company tests had found salmonella contamination at least 12 times between January 2007 and September 2008.
Congressional investigators accused officials at the Virginia-based company of intentionally shipping contaminated products to customers, part of a chain of events that led to one of the deadliest food-poisoning incidences in U.S. history.
Current law doesn’t require that those tests be reported to health inspectors, and after the company had one batch retested, Peanut Corporation president Stewart Parnell ordered the tainted batch released to food producers, telling managers “to turn them loose.”
Parnell complained in one e-mail that delays from positive salmonella tests were “costing us huge $$$$$.” And investigators found that company officials stopped using one testing company after complaining they were getting back too many positive results.
In October 2008, plant manager Sammy Lightsey told a tester who called to report salmonella in one batch that he couldn’t get the contaminated batch back “because it was on a truck heading to Utah,” the tester told Energy and Commerce Committee investigators.
The reports plainly enraged lawmakers.
“This is clearly criminal activity,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, vice chair of the committee, after the hearing in which Parnell cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, then left the Capitol trailed by question-shouting reporters.
The Denver congresswoman and other lawmakers repeatedly expressed frustration at the slow pace of reform of the country’s food-safety system, which relies heavily on companies to police themselves and often hobbles enforcement agencies.
In this case, the Food and Drug Administration didn’t have the legal power to institute a forced recall of food containing Peanut Corporation products, contributing to the spread of a salmonella outbreak that has so far killed nine people — the latest announced Wednesday — and sickened more than 600 — 16 in Colorado.
Just this week, Denver-based Liks Ice Cream voluntarily recalled two of its products sold at 12 retail stores across the state. The company said there have been no reports of illness from consuming its chocolate peanut-butter cup and vanilla peanut-butter cup ice cream.
A comprehensive food-safety bill was reintroduced earlier this year by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., but DeGette is pushing for more immediate steps, including separate bills that would give the FDA mandatory recall authority as well as the ability to trace the trail of ingredients in the country’s complicated food-supply system.
Both the scope of the Peanut Corporation poisoning and the symbolism of peanut butter — all-American and a favorite of children — are likely to finally push lawmakers to enact sweeping reforms, DeGette said.
“This peanut-butter outbreak, coming on the tail of so many other scares in the last couple of years, will be the tipping point,” DeGette said. “My sense is that a comprehensive bill just got moved much farther up the agenda.”
Among the witnesses at Wednesday’s hearings were the family members of victims, including Lou Tousignant, the son of a Korean War veteran who bluntly told lawmakers “my father died from eating peanut butter.”
Tousignant said the incident and the revelations about Peanut Corporation show the weaknesses of a system based on the goodwill of companies — even companies responsible for something as essential as food — to report problems that might cost them money.
“I know there are plenty of companies out there who are running ethical businesses,” Tousignant said, “but we have to be concerned about those who aren’t.”
Michael Riley: 202-662-8990 or mriley@denverpost.com
Cases in Colorado
Sixteen cases of salmonella (though no deaths) have been reported in Colorado in connection with peanuts processed by the Peanut Corporation of America:
Adams, 1
Arapahoe, 1
Boulder, 1
Denver, 2
Douglas, 1
El Paso, 2
Garfield, 1
Jefferson, 1
Larimer, 3
Mesa, 1
Routt, 1
Weld, 1
Source: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
