THESE THINGS NEVER RUN IN JUST ONE PLACE. DO NOT BUY CRACKERS, CANDIES OR JARED PEANUT BUTTER UNTIL THE FDA GETS OFF THEIR DEAD ASS’S.
By JAMIE STENGLE
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 12, 2009; 9:49 PM
DALLAS — Texas health officials ordered the recall Thursday of peanut products from a plant operated by the company at the center of a national salmonella outbreak, days after tests indicated the likely presence of the bacteria there.
Peanut Corp. of America was ordered to recall all products ever shipped from its plant in Plainview after the Texas Department of State Health Services said it found dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in a crawl space above a production area on Wednesday.
Health Department spokesman Doug McBride said it was up to Peanut Corp. to inform its clients around the country of the recall. It wasn’t immediately clear if the company was complying: Phone messages seeking comment from the company weren’t returned, and no information regarding the Texas action was posted on the company’s site.
However, even before the order, many customers of the Texas plant said they had begun holding products back, pulling them from shelves or running their own tests.
The order regarding the plant, which operated unlicensed and uninspected for nearly four years, is the latest bad news for the company being investigated in connection with an outbreak that has sickened 600 people and may have caused at least nine deaths. More than 2,000 possibly contaminated consumer products have already been recalled in one of the largest product recalls ever.
Federal investigators last month identified a Georgia peanut processing plant operated by Peanut Corp. as the source of the salmonella outbreak.
Texas inspectors also found that the air handling system was pulling debris from the infested crawl space into production areas at the Plainview plant that processed dry roasted peanuts, peanut meal and granulated peanuts. The plant, which voluntarily closed Monday, was also ordered by the state to stop producing and distributing food products.
McBride said he did not know the volume of products that needed to be pulled back.
Private lab tests returned Monday showed likely salmonella contamination at the plant, which opened in March 2005. Further testing was needed to confirm the results, but the health department said Thursday that their orders are not contingent on finding salmonella.
The health department said that lab tests are being done on food and environmental samples as well.
The plant in Plainview, located in the Texas Panhandle, was run by a Peanut Corp. subsidiary, Plainview Peanut Co. It was not inspected by state health officials until after problems arose at the Georgia plant.
Kenneth Kendrick, who worked as an assistant manager at the plant for several months in 2006, said Thursday he had sent several e-mails to the state health department while he worked there.
He said his complaints included a leaking roof, which he knew could be a problem because of bird excrement.
“Anything nasty you can think of comes from water off a roof,” said Kendrick, who said he left the plant voluntarily.
Kendrick said his initial complaints about the plant spurred no action. Last month, he complained again to state officials after his grandchildren became sick after eating peanut butter crackers.
The federal government has opened a criminal investigation into the company, and its president, Stewart Parnell, repeatedly refused to answer questions Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee, which is seeking ways to prevent another outbreak.
A message left seeking comment from Parnell Thursday wasn’t immediately returned.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which sent inspectors back to the plant after Monday’s test result, also didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.
Many companies hadn’t waited for state or federal officials to take action. Robert Grauer, president of In a Nut Shell, a San Leandro, Calif., said his company decided to hold back about about 200 cases of peanuts from the Texas plant before the order was issued.
“We’re not going to take a chance risking our customers _ not over some peanuts,” he said.
A handful of Whole Foods Market supermarkets in northern California that received products containing peanuts from the Texas plant pulled from them from shelves two days before the Texas recall “in an overabundance of caution,” said Libba Letton, spokeswoman for the Austin, Texas-based company.
___