Texas Officials Investigate Deaths Linked to Listeria-Tainted Celery

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has ordered a San Antonio produce plant to stop processing food and recall all products shipped since January 2010 because “laboratory tests of chopped celery from the plant indicated the presence of Listeria monocytogenes.” DSHS has prohibited Sangar Fresh Cut Produce from reopening without approval from the department, which issues such orders when conditions pose “an immediate and serious threat to human life or health,” according to an October 20, 2010, DSHS press release.

After an eight-month investigation into a Listeriosis outbreak that included
five deaths, DSHS allegedly linked Sangar’s chopped celery to six illnesses
in people “with serious underlying health problems.” State inspectors also
reportedly “found sanitation issues at the plant and believe the Listeria found
in the chopped celery may have contaminated other food product there.” The
recall primarily affects fresh produce sealed in packages and distributed “to
restaurants and institutional entities, such as hospitals and schools.”

Meanwhile, Sangar President Kenneth Sanquist has publicly disputed the
state’s findings, saying that independent testing “shows our produce to
be absolutely safe, and we are aggressively fighting the state’s erroneous
findings.” Plaintiffs’ lawyer Bill Marler, however, has since issued Freedom of
Information Act requests to the state of Texas to examine the viability of the
DSHS testing. “Sangar Fresh Cut Produce’s listeria [sic] outbreak will surely
result in lawsuits,” according to an October 20, 2010, post on Marler’s Food
Poison Journal. See Food Poison Journal, October 20 and 21, 2010; CNN.com,
October 21, 2010.