Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

This week, Food and Drug Administration officials issued an alert warning consumers to avoid eating pistachios and food containing pistachios while it investigates the source of another possible salmonella outbreak.

The FDA announced that Setton International Foods, Inc., a division of Terra Bella Inc., would voluntarily recall approximately 2 million pounds of roasted pistachios that have been shipping since last fall. The investigation and recall come after two people contacted the FDA complaining of symptoms of salmonella poisoning after eating the nuts. Although the link has not yet been confirmed, the plant where the pistachios were processed temporarily shut down last week.

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Last month, inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration visited the Plainview, Texas, peanut processing plant owned and operated by the Peanut Corporation of America. The inspection was ordered after investigators linked a salmonella outbreak that sickened nearly 700 people in nearly every state to the Peanut Corp’s plant in Blakely, Georgia. Shortly after the outbreak, news broke that the company’s sister plant in Texas plant actually operated unlicensed and uninspected for years. Inspectors rushed in.

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Peanut Corporation of America has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Virginia following the recall of peanut products produced in the company’s Blakely, Georgia, and Plainview, Texas, facilities.

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Federal officials have been reporting that that the Peanut Corporation of America had salmonella-contaminated peanut butter retested in an apparent effort to obtain negative results. however, this week the Food and Drug Administration corrected its report, saying that in some cases the peanut processing plant in Blakely, Georgia, didn’t wait for results of the second tests before sending shipments of peanut butter. In other cases, independent labs hired by the Peanut Corp. found salmonella in some peanut butter, but the company shipped it out anyway, without retesting.

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Most of the news concerning the massive peanut butter recall has focused on the manufacturing facility in Blakely, Georgia where Peanut Corporation of America produced the contaminated peanut butter that sickened so many people. Now Peanut Corporation’s other factory in Plainview, Texas, is in the spotlight because it operated unlicensed and uninspected for nearly four years.

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Seven-year-old Christopher Meunier spent nearly a week in the hospital late last year after eating some peanut butter crackers contaminated with salmonella. The boy’s parents, Gabrielle and Daryl Meunier of Burlington, Vermont, are now suing the Peanut Corporation of America for an undisclosed amount of money.

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Representative Henry Waxman, D-Cal. and Representative Bart Stupak, D-MI announced on Thursday that congress will hold the first public hearing on the salmonella outbreak that has been traced to Peanut Corporation of America’s peanut butter products.

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We reported earlier that the Peanut Corporation of America’s Blakely, Georgia plant knowingly shipped out a dozen batches of peanut products that had tested positive for salmonella. As the federal government’s investigation continues, the likelihood that company mangers will face criminal charges appears to grow.

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Officials from the Food and Drug Administration discovered that the Peanut Corporation of America found salmonella bacteria while conducting internal tests several times in 2007 and 2008 but knowingly sold its products anyway. The contaminated peanut butter products were shipped 12 times in those two years, according to company documents examined by the FDA.

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