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Company's Salmonella E-mails Talk Money

By PritzkerLaw

Two top executives of Peanut Corporation of America  (PCA) refused to testify Wednesday before a Congressional subcommittee investigating a nationwide Salmonella outbreak that has been associated with nine deaths and more than 600 illnesses.

But while Stewart Parnell, PCA's chief executive, and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the PCA plant in Blakely, Georgia, pleaded the Fifth Amendment to protect themselves against possible self-incrimination, members of Congress released copies of e-mails  that they traded inside the company regarding Salmonella.

Cornell University food safety professor Joseph Hotchkiss told The Associated Press that what he saw in the documents "might be interpreted as reckless disregard for the health of the consuming public.'' He said the documents show "abundant concern for PCA but little regard for the health and well-being of the people.''

On Sept. 29, 2008, for example, Lightsey e-mailed Parnell to note a positive test result for Salmonella in a lot of 441 cases of peanut granules produced four days earlier. They were being retested, but results weren't expected for another four days. Parnell responded: "We need to discuss this... the time lapse, besides the cost is costing us huge $$$$$ and causing obviously a huge lapse in time from the time we pick up peanuts until the time we can invoice.''

An e-mail from Lightsey to Parnell on Aug. 11  talked about a previous positive test result for Salmonella in products at the Blakely plant. Another firm retested the products and when they were deemed "clean'' on Aug. 21,' Parnell wrote an e-mail the same day saying, "Okay, let's turn them loose then.''

Despite the obvious dealings with Salmonella in 2008, Parnell wrote an e-mail on Jan. 12, 2009, that was circulated widely to company personnel. "As you probably know, we send hourly PB samples to an independent lab to test for Salmonella during production of peanut butter, and we have never found any Salmonella at all.''

By then, Minnesota health officials had taken samples of peanut butter produced by PCA and found Salmonella bacteria that was a genetic match to the outbreak strain. But Parnell wrote in his e-mail that the open container of peanut butter must have been cross-contaminated somewhere else, long after leaving the plant.

"Don't worry,'' the e-mail said. "We are well positioned to deal with this event no matter what happens... we were not the cause of this outbreak.''

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on February 12, 2009 (boomark / email).