The manager of an Iowa egg farm that recalled 550 million eggs in a 2010 Salmonella outbreak that may have sickened 2,000 people has reportedly entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiring to bribe a public official to allow the sale of eggs that failed to meet federal standards. United States v. Wasmund, No. 12-3041 (N.D. Iowa, plea entered September 12, 2012). According to Tony Wasmund’s attorney, the former manager, who oversaw some of the enterprises owned by Jack DeCoster, is cooperating with government authorities. The indictment charged Wasmund with authorizing the use of $300 in petty cash to be used by a colleague to bribe a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector assigned to DeCoster’s Wright County egg farm. The bribe was purportedly intended to persuade the inspector to approve the sale of shell eggs that had been withheld for falling short of applicable USDA standards. Prosecutors apparently refused…
Tag Archives salmonella
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued its “Guidance for Industry: Questions and Answers Regarding the Final Rule, Prevention of Salmonella Enteritidis in Shell Eggs During Production, Storage, and Transportation.” Comments may be submitted at any time, although the guidance, with nonbinding recommendations for complying with a final rule that took effect in September 2009, has incorporated comments submitted after the draft guidance was published. Presented in a Q&A format, the guidance addresses compliance dates, the egg rule’s coverage, definitions, Salmonella Enteritidis prevention measures, testing, sampling, and registration requirements. See Federal Register, August 21, 2012. Noting that Americans consume 242 eggs per capita annually, New York University Nutrition Professor Marion Nestle draws attention to the guidance in her blog and cites a recent Canadian study claiming an association between the consumption of egg yolks and plaque formation in coronary arteries. She suggests that we should not “be eating so many eggs,”…
Daniele International, Inc. has requested that a federal court in Rhode Island enter a $33.1 million default judgment against a spice and seasonings company that allegedly supplied the Salmonella-tainted pepper which resulted in a recall of more than 1.2 million pounds of salami products in 2010. Daniele Int’l, Inc. v. Wholesome Spice & Seasonings, Inc., No. 10-1558 (D.R.I., motion filed July 30, 2012). The defendant has purportedly failed to respond to the complaint or to Daniele’s motion for entry of default. The plaintiff contends that its damages totaled $33,181,174.
A New York resident has filed a putative class action against Diamond Pet Foods and Amazon.com, seeking medical monitoring for pets that consumed recalled Salmonella-tainted pet food. Cohen v. Schell & Kampeter, Inc., d/b/a Diamond Pet Foods, No. 12-3299 (E.D.N.Y., filed July 2, 2012). Plaintiff Steven Cohen alleges that he fed his dogs Taste of the Wild® brand pet food, purchased from Amazon.com, and that they became ill, vomiting frequently, “which caused damage to Plaintiff’s property.” Seeking to certify a nationwide class and statewide subclass of consumers, the plaintiff alleges breach of implied and express warranty, strict products liability, violations of state consumer fraud laws, negligence, and unjust enrichment. In addition to medical monitoring, the plaintiff seeks actual damages or restitution, attorney’s fees, costs, and interest. A Canadian non-profit representing the interests of foie gras producers, a New York-based foie gras producer and a company that operates restaurants in California have…
A California resident has filed a putative class action against Starbucks Corp. alleging that the company deceived consumers by failing to disclose that some of its products were made with cochineal extract, a common food-coloring ingredient made from crushed insects. Anderson v. Starbucks Corp., No. BC485438 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty., filed May 25, 2012). Seeking to represent a nationwide class and statewide subclass of consumers, the plaintiff claims that she and the class members, had they known about the company’s use of the ingredient, would not have purchased the products for a number of reasons, including objections to consuming animal products, allergic responses to the ingredient or “sheer disgust.” Alleging violations of the California Unfair Business Practices Act and False Advertising Act, unjust enrichment, fraud by omission/concealment, and violation of California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act, the plaintiff seeks disgorgement, restitution, compensatory and punitive damages, payment to a cy pres fund,…
An Australian court has reportedly awarded $8 million to the family of a girl who allegedly ate a Salmonella-contaminated chicken product from a KFC restaurant and became critically ill with organ system failures, septic shock, severe brain injury, and spastic quadriplegia. Samaan v. Kentucky Fried Chicken Pty Ltd., No. 2006/20457 (NSW Sup. Ct., decided April 4, 2012). The court exhaustively explores inconsistencies in the testimony and evidence concerning the source of the chicken that allegedly caused the injury, but concludes that the KFC “Twister” product “was the only common meal to the affected family members (and no others) and it was consumed within the incubation period for Salmonella poisoning.” According to the court, many of the inconsistencies could be attributed to language and translation issues given that the parents and one child were born in Sudan and were native Arabic speakers. Other inconsistencies could be attributed to concerns over the…
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 14 people in nine states have purportedly been stricken with a Salmonella strain identical to that found in “multiple brands of dry pet food produced by Diamond Pet Foods at a single manufacturing facility in South Carolina.” CDC’s May 3, 2012, announcement indicates that the strain, Salmonella infantis, is rare and could have infected humans after contact with dry pet food or with an animal that has eaten it. Five of those afflicted have apparently been hospitalized. The Salmonella was first detected by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development during a routine retail testing of dry pet food, and the company has voluntarily recalled three of its dry dog food products since then.
A federal grand jury in Illinois has brought criminal indictments against four individuals who allegedly distributed more than 110,000 pounds of Mexican cheese in the United States in 2007 despite Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “hold” orders and also allegedly “washed” cheese returned by dissatisfied customers by scraping off mold and fungus so it could be resold. United States v. Zurita, No. __ (N.D. Ill., indictment returned April 18, 2012). No illnesses or other public health issues were attributed to the adulterated cheese distribution in the six-count indictment. The charges involve three separate shipments of cheese from Mexico that FDA ordered to be held and then later ordered either “detained” or “refused” after testing revealed the presence of Salmonella, E. coli, alkaline phosphate (found in unpasteurized products), and Staphylococcus. The defendants allegedly conspired to distribute the shipments despite FDA orders not to do so. They also allegedly distributed cheese before inspection, failed…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently published its second annual Reportable Food Registry (RFR) report summarizing information submitted by manufacturers, processors, packers and holders through the online Food Safety Portal from September 8, 2010, to September 7, 2011. Covering all human and animal food/feed regulated by FDA “except infant formula and dietary supplements,” RFR tracks “patterns of food and feed adulteration” to help FDA administer inspection resources more effectively. According to the report, FDA received 1,153 total entries in RFR’s second year compared with 2,600 in its first year, a difference which the agency ascribes to three major events in 2009-2010 that generated 1,284 subsequent records related to sulfites in prepared side dishes, Listeria monocytogenes in cheese spreads and Salmonella in hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Without these entries, FDA stated, the tallies for the first and second years would have differed by only 74 records. In particular, the second annual…
Researchers from Jackson State University in Mississippi have reportedly developed a rapid test for detecting Salmonella on food that uses popcorn-shaped gold nanoparticles. Presented March 27, 2012, at the 243rd National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the application relies on antibodies attached to gold nanoparticles that then transfer to Salmonella bacteria if present, in the process changing color from pink to blue. “The test for lettuce requires just a tiny sample of lettuce leaf,” explained lead researcher Paresh Ray. “It doesn’t take a trained laboratory technician to perform the test or read the results. If the color changes from pinkish to bluish, that signals the presence of Salmonella. The test is suitable for use in farm fields and in remote areas of the developing world. We believe it may have enormous potential for rapid, on site pathogen detection to avoid the distribution of contaminated foods.” Although they…
