Possibly the only people happy last Tuesday when the Setton Pistachiorecall was expanded to include last year's entire crop were the folks at
PeanutCorp. of America.
Finally, they're out of the news for a while.
The Peanut Corp. of America recall, which started inJanuary and continuesto this day, stemmed from salmonella contamination that sickened 700 andkilled nine. Close to 4,000 foods have been removed from shelves. Kellogg alonedestroyed $70 million worth of product.
Closer to home, in Terra Bella in Tulare County, there are no reports of illness so far from the Setton Pistachiorecall that started inlate March and also continues. Food industry experts say it could wellreach the scope of the peanut recalls in terms of numbers of products removed.
"Products are going to be added every day ascompanies discover they used Settonpistachios," Caroline Smith DeWaal of the non-profit Center for Science in the PublicInterest told USA Today."It's going to take a while for the dust to settle."
The contamination apparently occurred because Setton had beenprocessing raw and roasted pistachios on the same production lines withoutadequate cleaning between uses, Food and Drug Administration AssociateCommissioner David Acheson told USAToday "Not a good idea."
Also nota good idea: Leaving it up to companies to decide whether they feel likereporting contamination to the FDA.
KraftFoods discovered a problem with salmonella in trail mix in December 2007, TheWashington Post reports. It took the company until March 2009 to tell the FDA.
"Webelieved there was no public health risk" because the trail mix never leftKraft's plant, a company spokeswoman told the Post.
Something similar happened in the peanut recall,though PCA's lack of reporting clearly had more of a cover-up component- it knew its plant was contaminated and not only kept quiet but also continuedto ship contaminated products anyway. PCA officials turned its reports over toinspectors only after officials threatenedto arrest them under bioterrorismlaws.
So how dothese things go on for so long without the people allegedly in charge ofprotecting our food supply even noticing?
Thoughthe trail isn't clear with the pistachios, in the case of the peanuts the FDAceded all inspections to the Georgia Agriculture Department. Over severalyears, that agency foundnumerous health concerns but let the company off the hook with a promise tofix problems the next day.
Itappears that in the pistachio recall, state officials also handled theinspections. According to msnbc.com, California Department ofPublic Health inspectors last visited the plant in April 2008 and gave it aclean bill of health.
There'sjust something about that timeline that doesn't make sense.
Kraft finds a problem in 2007. The state sayseverything is A-OK in 2008. Later that year, Setton Pistachiotesting starts turning up salmonella, though it says theproducts were destroyed. In 2009, the company recalls the entire harvestfrom the previous year.
If the fedscan't or won't take responsibility for food safety - there are a numberof bills pending inCongress that would make them do just that but already the opposition hasstarted the end-of-the-worldhype - then Californiamust.
Foreconomic reasons, Californiamust ensure that its massive growing and processing industries can producefoods that are safe for consumers. Investing in that goal makesfinancial sense.
Forhumanitarian reasons, Californiamust ensure that its residents can eat without fear of winding up in theemergency room or worse.