E. coli kills Idaho toddler
Pastor Dale Morgan
E. coli kills Idaho toddler*
Updated 10/6/2006 8:57 PM ET
Kyle Allgood
AP
BOISE (AP) — In opening a criminal investigation into two produce
companies involved in the contaminated spinach outbreak, federal agents
are following a script first written a decade ago to hold companies
responsible for mass food poisoning.
In 1996, authorities secured the first criminal conviction in a food
poisoning case when juice-maker Odwalla Inc. was heavily fined for
tainted apple juice that killed a baby. That was followed by a case
against Sara Lee Corp. five years later, which led to a fine for tainted
hot dogs and lunch meats that killed 15 people.
Federal officials do not think anyone deliberately contaminated the
spinach with E. coli, which has killed two and sickened at least 190
others. Instead, the probe is focused on whether the companies took
appropriate steps to make sure their products were safe to eat.
FBI and Food and Drug Administration agents spent 11 hours Wednesday
searching Natural Selection Foods LLC and Growers Express, sifting
through records for evidence indicating the spinach producers skirted
proper food-handling procedures.
"We are looking more toward the food-safety issue at this point," FBI
spokesman Joseph Schrader said Thursday, adding that the investigation
was in its early stages and may or may not lead to criminal charges. It
could also spread to other spinach producers, he said.
Also Thursday, health officials in Idaho confirmed that the death of a
2-year-old boy was caused by tainted spinach. Test results showed that
Kyle Allgood was infected with the same E. coli strain that also killed
an elderly Wisconsin woman.
Legal experts say the companies do not need to have known that their
products were contaminated to be convicted of criminal charges, only
negligent in their duties to keep tainted foods from the market.
Lawyers involved in previous food-poisoning cases said the government
will likely try to charge the companies under the 1938 Federal Food Drug
and Cosmetics Act, which makes it a crime to sell or distribute
"adulterated" products — any item deemed unsafe for human or animal
consumption.
Distributing contaminated food through interstate commerce is usually a
misdemeanor, but it can rise to a felony if authorities find evidence
that company officials knowingly took action to compromise the safety of
the food supply. Penalties can include jail time.
That would be hard to prove in this case, said Fred Pritzker, a food
safety lawyer in Minneapolis who represents several victims in the
recent spinach scare.
The federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act is unusual because simply
allowing contaminated foods into interstate commerce could result in
criminal charges, even if there was no intent to violate the law, said
Eric Greenberg, a law professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
"The result of prosecution under this statute is that you can be
considered a criminal, and you may even go to jail, and it may simply be
because you made a mistake, or one of your employees made a mistake," he
said.
Tests on spinach recalled from grocers point to nine spinach farms that
supplied produce to Natural Selection, one of the nation's largest
distributors of bagged salads. The company issued a statement Wednesday
saying it was confident in the cleanliness of its plant and pointing the
finger at growers. A spokeswoman said they had no further comment on
Thursday.
Growers Express operates a food-safety program in which small-scale
farmers pay the company to provide health and safety inspections and
maintain databases of audit reports. The company turned over these audit
reports to the FDA and FBI on Wednesday.
"We make a policy of having our records available," said Vice President
Woody Johnson. "We're not sophisticated enough to even try to hide this."
A 1996 case against juice-maker Odwalla was the first criminal
conviction stemming from mass food poisoning. Although investigators
never determined how the E. coli got into the apple juice, the company
was held criminally liable because its juice was unpasteurized, which
allowed the bacteria to thrive. Odwalla pleaded guilty and paid a $1.5
million fine — at the time the largest food-injury fine in FDA history.
The outbreak also led to new pasteurization and labeling requirements
for fruit juices.
Since then, the act has been used to prosecute other companies. In 2001,
Sara Lee Corp. pleaded guilty to selling adulterated hot dogs and lunch
meats and paid a $200,000 fine after a nationwide outbreak of
listeriosis killed 15 people and caused six miscarriages.
Authorities also have prosecuted farmers and processors under federal
clean-water laws and other environmental statutes in mass-poisoning cases.
In the same year as the Odwalla convictions, a California dairyman was
convicted on misdemeanor charges after authorities accused him of
dumping thousands of gallons of wastewater contaminated with animal
feces and urine into nearby creeks.
Companies involved in tainted food cases are not always prosecuted,
however. In 1993, a major E. coli outbreak sickened about 700 people and
killed four who ate undercooked Jack in the Box hamburgers. That
outbreak led to tighter Agriculture Department safety standards for meat
and poultry producers, and the chain paid millions to victims' families
to settle lawsuits.