By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The mortgage meltdown exposed the weakness of self-regulation in financial markets. Now the salmonella outbreak is doing the same for the food industry.

A House subcommittee Thursday released new documents that showed how private inspectors contracted by Peanut Corp. of America failed to find long-standing sanitary problems at company facilities. Peanut Corp. is at the center of a nationwide outbreak that has sickened nearly 700 people and is blamed for at least nine deaths.

Lawmakers said the food industry’s private inspection system failed to catch filthy conditions because the company itself hired the inspectors.

“There is an obvious and inherent conflict of interest when an auditor works for the same supplier it is evaluating,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee. He termed it a “cozy relationship.”

Last summer, Peanut Corp.’s private inspector, a company called AIB, awarded the peanut processor a certificate in 2008 for “superior” quality at its Plainview, Texas, plant. This year, salmonella was discovered there.

The outbreak was initially traced to a Peanut Corp. facility in Blakely, Ga. Later, contamination was found at the Texas plant. Peanut Corp. is under criminal investigation for allegedly shipping products it knew to be tainted.

Owner Stewart Parnell has refused to answer questions from lawmakers, citing constitutional protections against self-incrimination. On Thursday, Parnell told The Associated Press he couldn’t comment on the allegations and referred questions to his attorney, who was not immediately available.

Federal law does not require food companies to pay for their own inspections of suppliers. Nor are industry labs and inspectors required to tell the government about any problems they find.

At least one food company that used its own inspectors, Nestle USA, ultimately decided not to do business with Peanut Corp. Nestle USA had no recalls. But a Nestle affiliate in Puerto Rico recalled some ice cream products, and Nestle HealthCare Nutrition — another affiliate — recalled a nutritional bar.

The committee released a 2002 Nestle USA inspection report of Peanut Corp.’s Blakely plant. “They found that the place was filthy,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

A second audit by Nestle USA of Peanut Corp.’s Texas facility in 2006 also found major pest control and other problems. The audit said that would disqualify the plant from supplying chopped peanut pieces to sprinkle atop Drumstick ice-cream cones.

Auditors found at least 50 mouse carcasses in and around the plant and also a dead pigeon “lying on the ground near the peanut-receiving door.”

The audit also said the plant had no pathogen-monitoring plan and noted that one needed to be developed for the plant to be in compliance with audit standards.

Companies that bought ingredients from Peanut Corp. said they had no way of defending themselves against a supplier they accuse of deliberately breaking the rules and covering up.

“I think we did everything we could do,” Kellogg Co. chief executive David Mackay told the committee.

“The issue was that (Peanut Corp.) acted in a dishonest and unethical way,” he added.

Lawmakers and the Obama administration say the problem goes beyond a rogue company, and major reforms are needed. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to take food safety oversight away from the Food and Drug Administration and give it to a new agency with stronger legal powers and more funding.

Peanut Corp. produced not only peanut butter, but peanut paste, an ingredient found in foods from granola bars and dog biscuits to ice cream and cake. More than 3,490 products have been recalled, including some millions of Kellogg’s Austin and Keebler peanut butter sandwich crackers.

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On the Net:

FDA salmonella page: http://tinyurl.com/8srctw

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By DANNY ROBBINS
Associated Press Writer

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas agriculture inspector failed to note that a peanut plant at the center of a national salmonella outbreak was operating without a state health department license despite at least three visits in the years before hundreds of people got sick, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The inspector responsible for certifying the plant to process organic products noted after each visit that the plant had such a license when it didn’t. Health officials said problems at the plant operated by Peanut Corp. of America might have been flagged years ago had the inspector, who has since been fired, reported the plant’s failure to obtain the required license.

When the plant was finally inspected earlier this year, Texas health officials found dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in a crawl space above a production area, leading them to order a recall of all products the plant had shipped since 2005.

Tests have since shown that ground peanuts at the Plainview plant were contaminated with the same strain of salmonella that sickened more than 650 people, is suspected of causing at least nine deaths, and led to one of the largest product recalls in U.S. history. Salmonella has also been detected in peanut samples from a Georgia plant operated by Peanut Corp., which has filed for bankruptcy amid fallout from the outbreak.

Texas Department of Agriculture spokesman Bryan Black said if the lack of a license had been properly noted, the department would have denied it organic certification and notified the Department of State Health Services. The inspector, Gaylon Amonett, was fired on Feb. 13, the day after state health officials ordered the recall.

“We trust our inspectors to do their jobs,” Black said. “Any time they do not follow the protocol, it is inexcusable.”

Because the Plainview plant was not licensed, state health officials have said they had no record it existed and never sent their own inspectors to the facility to check for possible food safety problems. All food manufacturers in the state are required to obtain a license from the state health department.

Amonett, a 22-year TDA employee who worked out of the agency’s Lubbock office, acknowledged that he checked “yes” to the question of whether the Plainview plant had records showing it was in compliance with health codes on worksheets he completed for inspections in 2005, 2006 and 2008.

The reason he checked “yes” the first time, he said, was because a plant manager told him an application for state health department licensing had been completed and was in the hands of Peanut Corp. officials at the company’s headquarters. He said he continued to check “yes” in succeeding years because he assumed that the license was granted.

Amonett said the matter was his “only mistake” in his years as an inspector. Agriculture department records show that he received a merit raise on Jan. 1.

“It’s an inadvertent mistake, and I’m sorry for it,” he said.

Jack McCasland, environmental inspector for the Plainview-Hale County Health Department, said plant officials led him to believe the licensing process was under way when he visited the facility before it opened.

“To be honest, I never really thought to follow up on it,” McCasland said. “It just never occurred to me that they wouldn’t be (licensed).”

Organic certification allows companies to market products as organically grown or produced. Processors must meet standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and are monitored by a USDA-accredited entity. The Texas Department of Agriculture has served as a certifying agency since 2002.

In a memo about the Plainview matter, TDA assistant general counsel Jim Pollard wrote that Amonett was trained as an organic inspector in 2004. Under agency rules, inspectors are required to make sure a company’s licenses and other records are complete and current. The memo, obtained by the AP through a request under the Texas Public Information Act, cited the three inspections by Amonett.

TDA declined to release the inspection reports, contending that they are exempt from disclosure under the information act.

Although food safety is technically not part of the organic certification process, the salmonella outbreak has prompted the USDA to direct organic certifying entities to report any health or safety violations to the appropriate government officials.

“While we do not expect organic inspectors to be able to detect salmonella or other pathogens, their potential sources should be obvious from such evidence as bird, rodent and other animal feces or other pest infestations,” the directive stated.

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Associated Press writer Betsy Blaney contributed to this report from Lubbock, Texas.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Six salmonella cases in Colorado have been linked to tainted products from a shuttered Texas plant owned by the peanut processing company at the focal point of a national outbreak of the disease.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment linked the cases to the Plainview Peanut Co. in the Texas Panhandle, The Oregonian newspaper in Portland reported Saturday. The Colorado victims were between the ages of 2 and 60. One had to be hospitalized, the newspaper reported.

The Plainview plant, owned by Peanut Corp. of America, had operated since 2005 without an inspection, authorities have said.

On Thursday, Texas health officials ordered the recall of all peanut-related ingredients ever shipped from the Plainview plant. Inspectors found dead rodents and feces, and preliminary tests by a private lab indicated salmonella was present.

A Texas health official confirmed Saturday that they knew come Colorado salmonella cases were possibly linked to the Plainview plant, which was shut down after the inspection.

“It’s certainly not a surprise to us,” said Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The salmonella cases in Colorado were traced to peanut butter from Lakewood-based Vitamin Cottage. The natural foods chain recalled its Vitamin Cottage Fresh-Ground Peanut butter last week.

Vitamin Cottage could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday evening.

In a statement last week, though, Vitamin Cottage officials said they’d been notified by Colorado authorities that three people had salmonella after eating the peanut butter in late December or early January. Vitamin Cottage has 25 stores in Colorado, plus stores in Texas, New Mexico and Utah.

The salmonella outbreak has sickened some 600 people in 43 states and is being linked to nine deaths. More than 1,900 products have been recalled, and Peanut Corp. of America is under FBI investigation and filed for bankruptcy Friday. Leading brands of jarred peanut butter are not affected.

Alicia Cronquist, epidemiologist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told The Oregonian that 16 people in the state have been sickened by tainted peanut butter, six of them linked to peanut butter from Vitamin Cottage and the Texas plant.

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On the Net:

Vitamin Cottage: http://www.vitamincottage.com

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment: http://www.cdphe.state.co.us

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By GREG BLUESTEIN
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) — First, federal investigators said Stewart Parnell knowingly shipped salmonella-tainted foods even after internal tests showed they were contaminated. Then they revealed the evidence: e-mails Parnell sent to his employees urging them to ship out the products that authorities say ultimately sickened hundreds and may have caused the deaths of nine.

Federal authorities, who started an investigation last month, have remained tightlipped about possible charges against Parnell. So has the FBI, which raided the company’s Georgia plant about a week ago.

But food safety attorneys say prosecutors have an array of options for what could be one of the Food and Drug Administration’s most high-profile tainted food cases in decades.

“Any time you’ve got interstate commerce, those are the buzz words for federal prosecution,” said Kent Alexander, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta who is now general counsel at Emory University. “And prosecutors can be very creative in alleging schemes involving interstate commerce.”

One tool federal prosecutors could use is the 1938 Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a fine of $10,000 if prosecutors prove there’s an intent to “defraud or mislead.”

Prosecutors could also turn to a range of other laws if they are seeking a tougher punishment.

Fred Pritzker, a food safety lawyer in Minneapolis who filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Peanut Corp., said investigators could charge Parnell with federal anti-conspiracy charges.

Or authorities could charge Parnell and his company with mail fraud or wire fraud if prosecutors believe they can prove they were knowingly giving customers adulterated product, said Jim Frush, a former federal prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney.

And Alexander said the ongoing investigation could yield a separate, perhaps indirect, charge.

“In cases like this, sometimes the biggest vulnerability people have is lying under oath or lying to federal investigators,” he said.

Authorities say a Blakely, Ga., plant run by Parnell’s company, Peanut Corp. of America, is the sole source of a salmonella outbreak that has led to one of the nation’s biggest food recalls. The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection Friday.

Prosecutions in such cases are fairly rare, and they generally lead to fines against companies rather than jail time or other punishments for individuals. Recent convictions include the 1996 case against juice-maker Odwalla Inc., which was fined $1.5 million on charges of shipping unpasteurized apple juice that killed a baby. Five years later, Sara Lee Corp. was fined $200,000 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of selling tainted meats in a listeria outbreak that killed 15 people.

Other, more high-profile outbreaks haven’t yielded criminal charges. Prosecutors decided not to press charges against two produce companies involved in a 2006 tainted spinach case that killed three people and sickened 200 others, saying the investigation found growers and processors did not deliberately skirt the law.

Parnell’s e-mails, released this week by House investigators, depict a man driven by profits who instructed his employees to ship out products despite reports that salmonella was detected. “Turn them loose,” he said in one e-mail.

Parnell, summoned by congressional subpoena, repeatedly invoked his right not to incriminate himself. Reached by telephone Friday, he said his attorneys had advised him not to talk. The company, in statements, has said it is cooperating with federal investigators.

Food safety watchdogs have long argued that the FDA doesn’t pursue criminal charges enough in tainted food cases, but they have little doubt that investigators are building a case as public outrage grows.

“I am no attorney,” said Mike Doyle, a University of Georgia food safety scientist. “But the evidence appears to be a smoking gun. It appears that Mr. Parnell knowingly ordered shipment of salmonella-contaminated product.”

Creighton Magid, a Washington-based products liability attorney often on the defense side, said prosecutors may not press charges in food safety cases because they don’t want to discourage responsible companies from coming forward with their mistakes.

Parnell’s case, he said, appears to be a sharp contrast.

“There’s a huge difference between a recall of a product because of a flaw in manufacturing and knowingly selling a product that is contaminated,” he said. “That’s a different ball game entirely.”

Either way, food safety attorneys say the revelations this week could be the opening act of one of the most high-profile tainted food prosecutions in recent history.

“The question is not whether there will be charges,” said Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who has filed lawsuits against Parnell’s company. “But what they will charge him with.”

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On the Net:

U.S. Food and Drug Administration, http://www.fda.gov/

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By MIKE STOBBE
AP Medical Writer

ATLANTA (AP) — Most Americans know about a peanut-based national salmonella outbreak but many are wrong about what products are involved and few have confidence in food safeguards, according to a Harvard survey released Friday.

About 1 in 4 of those polled mistakenly think that national peanut butter brands are involved in the product recalls, but fewer than half are worrying about recalled snack bars, baked goods, ice cream and dry-roasted peanuts.

The recall of 1,900 products includes mainly minor-label peanut butter and a range of other items, but not major brand names of jarred peanut butter.

“A lot of people have taken some precautions but they’re not looking at the ingredients in products not related to peanut butter,” said Robert Blendon, the Harvard health policy professor who directed the survey.

About 93 percent know about the outbreak and recall, and most of them understood it was caused by salmonella bacteria — an unusually high level of awareness for a public health issue, Blendon noted.

The poll also indicated little faith in corporations and the government. Only 1 in 3 Americans said they have a good or great amount of confidence in food manufacturers or government inspectors to keep food safe, the survey found.

Federal health officials are tracking a salmonella outbreak that has caused at least 636 illnesses in 44 states and has been linked to 9 deaths. The outbreak has been traced to a Virginia-based company, Peanut Corporation of America, that makes some minor-label peanut butter, peanut paste and other products.

Nearly 200 food makers who used or sold Peanut Corporation products are listed in a recall of more than 1,900 different items, making this one of the nation’s largest recalls.

The telephone survey, which dialed both landline and cell phone numbers, included nearly 1,300 U.S. adults. The interviews were done last week.

Of those that knew about the outbreak, 70 percent knew that peanut butter crackers were part of the recall.

There was not a question about all brands of peanut butter. But a question about major national brands indicated 25 percent mistakenly thought they were involved and had been recalled.

Only about half correctly identified some snack bars containing peanut paste as part of the recall. Just a little more than a third understood that some candy and prepackaged meals were involved, and only about a quarter identified some types of ice cream as a risk.

Fewer than 1 in 5 people have gone to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s online list of foods involved or sought other information about recalled products.

The survey also indicated extremes of concern and apathy: About 31 percent contacted friends or relatives to make sure they know about the recall, and about 15 percent stopped eating any foods containing peanuts. But 69 percent didn’t contact loved ones, and 45 percent continued to eat all peanut-containing foods.

The survey also found that 33 percent of all survey respondents were very worried or somewhat worried about getting food poisoning, which was down a bit from the 38 percent who expressed such concern in a similar poll last June.

“We don’t know why the level of overall worry about food safety did not increase,” Blendon said. One possible factor: “About the peanut thing, some people say they are not worried because they’re taking precautions,” he said.

The poll also found that 37 percent had a good or great amount of confidence in government food inspections, down from 47 percent a year ago. About 48 percent had significant faith in grocery stores to safeguard food, down from 58 percent a year ago.

Only 32 percent had significant confidence in food manufacturers. There was no similar question on last year’s poll to compare that result to.

The negative reviews may be due in part to increasing success in tracking food problems, said Glen Nowak, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although the number of confirmed food poisonings has held about steady in recent years, more advanced testing allows investigators to better link cases and identify national outbreaks.

“The system is going to look less safe,” Nowak said.

Harvard is funded by the CDC to do a series of surveys on public health topics. The Harvard poll was conducted by ICR of Media, Pa., and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

__

On the Net:

Harvard School of Public Health: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and SUE LINDSEY
Associated Press Writers

LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — A little over a month ago, Stewart Parnell was telling friends and clients just how good things were in his peanut business. He was spending time with his grandchild, looking forward to some more hunting and getting his boat out on the water.

Today, the man forever associated with the deadly salmonella outbreak is more the recluse, staying close to the house he bought here more than 14 years ago, when it was still surrounded by pastures. Parnell is telling those same friends and clients not to call, not to visit, not to do anything that might link them to the firestorm he’s facing.

In his hometown in central Virginia, Parnell is known as a respected businessman. But the image of a benevolent peanut tycoon contrasts markedly with what investigators said occurred inside the processing plants of Peanut Corp. of America. Worried about profits, they said, Parnell fired off jaw-dropping e-mails to employees amid reports that salmonella had been detected in his products: “Turn them loose.”

Reconciling the Jekyll-and-Hyde tale of Stewart Parnell, 54, and his contaminated peanuts carries important consequences for food protection reforms already being considered in Washington. Was Parnell a hapless businessman whose mistakes revealed seams in the government’s safety net? Or does the system require a more extensive overhaul to identify companies that might knowingly deliver tainted ingredients?

Those close to Parnell said he’s not a monster, just a person who has made mistakes.

“I haven’t condemned him yet,” said Eddie Marks, who runs a Virginia storage company and has known Parnell for 15 years.

For nearly five minutes before being dismissed, Parnell listened Wednesday as U.S. lawmakers described him as greedy and uncaring, indifferent to the impact his beleaguered business has had on the lives of so many. He repeatedly invoked his constitutional right not to say anything that could be used against him.

Parnell isn’t talking now, not to reporters or congressmen who pelted him with questions about whether his Georgia plant was responsible for 600 illnesses and nine deaths across the country. Nearly 200 food makers who used or sold Parnell’s products are listed on a recall of more than 1,900 items, making this one of the nation’s largest recalls.

His appearance before a House subcommittee was the first opportunity to put a face to the latest food contamination scare: a round, slightly swollen, seemingly sleepless face of a man fidgeting in his seat, or tapping his fingers on the desk before him, or folding his arms awkwardly, or jerking his head to the side as if he heard his name called.

“I’m assuming he will talk when the time is right,” said his brother Michael of Midlothian, Va.

Texas health officials this week told him to shut his plant there and ordered a recall Thursday of all its products after salmonella was discovered, along with “dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers.”

This is not the man Charles Pond knew when he sold him his Suffolk, Va., peanut business in 2001. Parnell leases Pond’s building and makes monthly payments for equipment.

“He’s been slow to pay on some of it, but other than that, we’ve never seen any problems like this,” Pond said.

Parnell has had a long, successful run in the peanut business, starting with his father and two younger brothers in 1977. They took a struggling, $50,000-a-year peanut roasting operation and turned it into a $30 million business before selling in 1995. Parnell once boasted about the company on his Web site.

Parnell continued working as a consultant to the business after the family sold it, and in 2000 he left to buy his own peanut plant again in Texas. In 2001, he bought the Blakely, Ga., operation after teaming up with a financial backer, David Royster III of Shelby, N.C.

Pond said Royster supplied the money, Parnell supplied the experience for the Georgia and Virginia peanut businesses.

Royster did not returned repeated calls for comment over several days made to his office and home by The Associated Press.

Friends of Parnell said there is more to him than what the public has seen. He is a father to two grown daughters, a pilot of more than 30 years, an avid hunter, a reliable contributor to local charities, a man who has spent more than three decades in his business.

“He’s an amazing person,” said Nancy Weaver, a neighbor of Parnell’s. Weaver called a reporter to defend Parnell, to say he’s just being maligned and misunderstood. But she, like others close to him, declined to discuss him further when a reporter knocked on the door.

The public record portrays a different man, someone who repeatedly has faced problems in his business years before it became ground zero for the salmonella outbreak.

In 1990, federal inspectors found toxic mold in products produced in Parnell’s peanut company in Virginia that forced a recall of the food, according to a 1992 lawsuit filed in Virginia. Parnell settled the case with two companies that had products contaminated.

In 2001, inspectors found peanuts may have been exposed to pesticides, and in 2006 Parnell’s company hired a consultant to help resolve a salmonella problem at the Georgia plant.

Parnell is not a fly-by-night operator, said Eddie Marks, the Virginia businessman and Parnell client. Parnell’s client list includes some of the nation’s largest food companies — Kellogg, Frito-Lay, Jenny Craig, Sara Lee.

“I think you can look at his customer base and determine that he’s been well-recognized,” Marks said.

Michael Smith, purchasing manager for Stapleton-Spence Packing Co. in Gridley, Calif., has bought peanuts from Parnell for years and describes him as “one of the nicest guys in the world.”

Smith said he recently sent Parnell an e-mail expressing support, and in less than five minutes Parnell responded.

“He said, ‘I have one thing for you: Take care of yourself, your family and your business.”

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Blackledge reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Greg Bluestein in Atlanta and Sharon Theimer in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The number of deaths linked to the nationwide salmonella outbreak rose to nine Wednesday when Ohio health officials announced that an elderly woman who died earlier this year had been infected with the strain involved.

The woman was from Medina County, south of Cleveland. Kristopher Weiss, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health, said he could not release any other details on her death, citing federal reporting rules.

Though the woman had the same strain of salmonella associated with the national outbreak, it was unclear if the contamination was directly linked to peanut butter.

A peanut plant in Georgia is accused of shipping salmonella-tainted goods.

The salmonella outbreak has sickened 600 people and has led to one of the largest recalls in history, with more than 1,900 products pulled. Ohio is reporting 92 cases linked to the outbreak, the most in the United States.

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On the Net:

Ohio Department of Health: http://www.odh.ohio.gov

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By KATE BRUMBACK
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) — Private lab tests show there may have been salmonella at a second plant operated by the peanut company at the center of a national outbreak, but the potentially tainted products were not sent to consumers, Texas health officials said Tuesday.

The Peanut Corp. of America temporarily closed its plant in Plainview, Texas, Monday night at the request of health officials after the tests found “the possible presence of salmonella” in some of its products, the Texas Department of Health said in a statement.

The Texas plant produces peanut meal, granulated peanuts and dry roasted peanuts. Texas state health officials said that possibly contaminated peanut meal and granulated peanuts had not been sent to customers. Potentially contaminated dry roasted peanuts were shipped to a distributor, but were caught before reaching the public, state officials said.

The company is being investigated in connection with an outbreak that has sickened 600 people and may have caused at least eight deaths. More than 1,840 possibly contaminated consumer products have been recalled.

Peanut Corp. closed its plant in Blakely, Ga., last month after federal investigators identified that facility as the source of the salmonella outbreak. Company spokeswoman Amy Rotenberg did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

The Texas closing came a day after the FBI raided the company’s plant in Georgia, hauling off boxes and other material. Agents executed search warrants at both the plant and at Peanut Corp.’s headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., according to a senior congressional aide with knowledge of the raids. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

During their investigation at the Georgia plant, Food and Drug Administration inspectors found roaches, mold, a leaking roof and other sanitation problems. They also found two strains of salmonella. Though different from the outbreak strain, the discovery of the bacteria at the plant signalled a hole in food safety.

The FDA said last week the company knowingly shipped salmonella-laced products from the Georgia plant after tests showed the products were contaminated. Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers’ health.

FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said the agency is still investigating the Plainview facility. It was not immediately known if the discovery would lead to broader product recalls. Cruzan said the FDA is searching records to see where products from the Plainview plant may have been distributed.

“The FDA has collected its own samples and is awaiting lab results,” Cruzan said. Initially, agency officials had indicated that the salmonella problems seemed to be limited to Peanut Corp.’s Georgia plant.

An Associated Press investigation last week revealed that the Texas plant, which opened in March 2005 and was run by a subsidiary, Plainview Peanut Co., operated uninspected and unlicensed by state health officials until after the company came under investigation last month by the Food and Drug Administration.

Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Peanut Corp. agreed to shut the plant voluntarily as it works with the state agency.

Plainview Mayor John Anderson said Tuesday the Texas plant employed about 30 people. It was not immediately clear how they would be affected by the suspension.

“I’m just very sorry to hear that,” Plainview Mayor John Anderson said Tuesday when a reporter called with news of the suspension. “Hopefully it’s just a temporary suspension. That’d be the best of all worlds.”

The company, which also operates a small plant under the name Tidewater Blanching in Suffolk, Va., sold its peanut butter to institutional clients, such as nursing homes, and its peanut paste to many other companies that used it as an ingredient in products ranging from cookies and ice cream to energy bars and pet treats. While the company initially said its products weren’t sold directly to consumers, it said Sunday that some were sold directly to discount retailers.

Food safety attorney Bill Marler, one of several attorneys who have filed civil lawsuits against the company since the outbreak started, said it was the latest disturbing turn for Peanut Corp.

“It is clear that PCA is not a producer that companies could — or can — rely on for a safe product,” he said.

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Associated Press Writers Brett Blackledge and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington, Greg Bluestein in Atlanta and Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

BY SETH BORENSTEIN and BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has increasingly relied on food-safety inspections performed by states, where budgets for inspections in many cases have remained stagnant and where overburdened officials are trained less than their federal counterparts and perform skimpier reviews, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The thoroughness of inspections performed by states has emerged as a key issue in the investigation of the national salmonella outbreak traced to a peanut processing plant in Blakely, Ga. The outbreak, which has highlighted weaknesses in the nation’s food-safety system, is blamed for 600 illnesses and at least eight deaths in 44 states.

The House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, which is to hold a hearing Wednesday on food safety, scheduled a meeting Tuesday to issue a subpoena for Peanut Corp. of America President Stewart Parnell, said a senior aide to a member of the panel. The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because panel members were still being notified, said Parnell was otherwise refusing to appear at the hearing.

State investigators performed more than half the Food and Drug Administration’s food inspections in 2007, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. That represents a dramatic rise from a decade ago, when FDA investigators performed three out of four of the federal government’s inspections. The Agriculture Department is responsible for meat and dairy safety.

Increased inspection responsibilities have not been accompanied by big spending increases in many states responsible for the bulk of the nation’s food production.

The FDA covers some costs for states to perform inspections. But in Pennsylvania and Ohio, for example, each state’s own food safety spending increased only slightly since 2003, less than the rate of inflation; in California and Massachusetts, just barely more than inflation; and in New Jersey, spending has remained about the same. Those are among states with the largest numbers of food-processing plants.

“It clearly is a passing the buck kind of thing and somebody is dropping the buck along the way,” said Cornell University food safety professor Joseph Hotchkiss.

A Georgia health inspector noted only two minor violations at the Peanut Corp. of America plant in October, and inspection reports indicate officials spent no more than a few hours inside the plant during visits there. But after the FDA became suspicious of the plant’s role in the outbreak months later, it found roaches, mold, a leaking roof and other sanitation problems. The federal agents spent days at the plant.

“To say that food safety in this country is a patchwork system is giving it too much credit,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Agriculture Committee. “Food safety in America has become a hit or miss gamble, and that is truly frightening. It’s time to find the gaps in the system and remedy them.”

The FDA never followed up on the Georgia inspections because the problems discovered by the state “were considered to be somewhat resolved,” Michael Chappell, head of the FDA’s enforcement division, said during a congressional hearing last week.

The FDA relied on Georgia to inspect the Peanut Corp. plant in Blakely between 2006 and 2008, just as it relies on other states. But Georgia failed to identify problems, even as the company’s own internal testing repeatedly found salmonella in its products and Canada rejected a shipment of its peanuts because of metal contamination.

“Many of these state contract inspections are much briefer, much less intensive inspections than the FDA does,” said former FDA deputy commissioner Michael Taylor, who supports contracting to the states.

Taylor said the FDA doesn’t have enough money to perform its own inspections. But he acknowledges problems with state visits and has urged a dramatic overhaul of federal and state food safety.

The number of federal field food inspectors dropped by more than 400 between 2003 and 2007, according to the FDA’s budget. But the number of businesses requiring oversight increased by 7,200 between 2003 and 2007, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

“What’s happened is the agency can do fewer and fewer (inspections) itself, so if it’s going to do anything it has to use the states,” said Bill Hubbard, a former associate FDA commissioner who now lobbies for increases in FDA funding. “The states can do it much more cheaply, but the states may not do as it thoroughly.”

Some states, such as New York and Florida, earn high praise among food safety experts for conducting professional inspections. And in some cases, state enforcement laws give state officials more authority than the FDA’s inspectors have under federal laws.

Florida’s food safety director, Dr. Marion Aller, said her inspectors are as good as the FDA’s. But even though Florida recently raised fees it charges for inspections, she acknowledged the state’s food safety budget “has not kept pace with the growth in the industry.”

“We are not inspecting 100 percent of the firms at 100 percent of the desired times,” she said.

In the wake of the Georgia case, food-safety inspections are facing new scrutiny from Congress. The FBI said Monday it has joined the criminal investigation involving the owner of the Georgia plant.

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Associated Press writer Jim Drinkard contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Summary

By KATE BRUMBACK
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) — The peanut company at the center of an investigation into a deadly national salmonella outbreak suspended operations at a second processing plant Tuesday.

Peanut Corporation of America said in a statement it was voluntarily suspending operations at its Plainview, Texas, plant while state and federal health officials investigate procedures and food safety records there. The facility is operated by a subsidiary, Plainview Peanut Co.

An Associated Press investigation last week revealed that the Plainview plant, which opened in March 2005, operated uninspected and unlicensed by state health officials until after the company came under investigation last month by the Food and Drug Administration. Once inspectors learned about the Texas site, they found no sign of salmonella there.

Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Peanut Corp. agreed to shut the plant voluntarily as it works with the state agency.

Peanut Corp. closed its plant in Blakely, Ga., last month after federal investigators identified that facility as the source of the salmonella outbreak. The company also operates a small plant under the name Tidewater Blanching in Suffolk, Va.

The Texas closing comes a day after the FBI raided the plant in Georgia, hauling off boxes and other material. Agents executed search warrants at both the plant and at Peanut Corp.’s headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., according to a senior congressional aide with knowledge of the raids. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday that the number of cases linked to the current outbreak has reached 600, with one case in Florida bringing the number of affected states to 44. It may also have contributed to eight deaths.

“I’m just very sorry to hear that,” Plainview Mayor John Anderson said Tuesday when a reporter called with news of the suspension. “Hopefully it’s just a temporary suspension. That’d be the best of all worlds.”

He said the plant employed about 30 people. It was not immediately clear how the suspension would affect them.

Plainview, a city of about 22,000, is about 48 miles north of Lubbock and relies heavily on agriculture for its livelihood.

“They’ve been very good citizens of ours,” said David Evans, executive director of the Hale County Industrial Foundation, the county’s economic development body. “I can’t say a bad word about them.”

Food safety attorney Bill Marler, one of several plaintiff’s attorneys who has filed civil lawsuits against the company since the outbreak started, said it was the latest disturbing turn for Peanut Corp.

“It is clear that PCA is not a producer that companies could — or can — rely on for a safe product,” he said.

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Associated Press Writers Brett Blackledge in Washington, Greg Bluestein in Atlanta and Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.
Summary