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Let them eat peanuts: CEO put profit ahead of safety
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Added by
madameape on 12 Feb 2009
From: www.washingtonpost.com
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| Image courtesy kimberlykv via Flickr |
Congress has obtained internal documents from the Peanut Corp. of America that show CEO Stewart Parnell's deep concern over his plant's salmonella outbreak. Concern, that is, about cost, delays, and the company's bottom line.
WaPo: "Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped contaminated products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity, according to e-mails and memos made public yesterday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Parnell, whose Virginia-based company is at the center of a massive food-contamination scandal and a federal criminal investigation, was compelled by subpoena to appear before lawmakers but refused to answer questions.
The e-mails and records also show how Parnell repeatedly tried to get around internal laboratory tests that showed salmonella contamination by sending the samples to a different laboratory for new tests. When confronted with a positive reading for salmonella in October, instead of destroying the tainted product -- a standard industry response -- Parnell sent it to a different lab and then complained about the delay.
"The time lapse, besides the cost is costing us huge $$$$$," Parnell wrote in an October e-mail to plant manager Sammy Lightsey.
In another e-mail between Parnell and Lightsey, the manager reported that samples from the plant taken on Aug. 11 had tested positive for salmonella but had been sent to another laboratory and received a negative result. "Okay, let's turn them loose then," Parnell wrote.
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Federal regulators at the hearing called Parnell's actions "unconscionable"; several lawmakers called them criminal."
WaPo: "Stewart Parnell, president of Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped contaminated products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity, according to e-mails and memos made public yesterday at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Parnell, whose Virginia-based company is at the center of a massive food-contamination scandal and a federal criminal investigation, was compelled by subpoena to appear before lawmakers but refused to answer questions.
The e-mails and records also show how Parnell repeatedly tried to get around internal laboratory tests that showed salmonella contamination by sending the samples to a different laboratory for new tests. When confronted with a positive reading for salmonella in October, instead of destroying the tainted product -- a standard industry response -- Parnell sent it to a different lab and then complained about the delay.
"The time lapse, besides the cost is costing us huge $$$$$," Parnell wrote in an October e-mail to plant manager Sammy Lightsey.
In another e-mail between Parnell and Lightsey, the manager reported that samples from the plant taken on Aug. 11 had tested positive for salmonella but had been sent to another laboratory and received a negative result. "Okay, let's turn them loose then," Parnell wrote.
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Federal regulators at the hearing called Parnell's actions "unconscionable"; several lawmakers called them criminal."
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on 12 Feb 2009
Just hearing there were deaths those responsible should receive the death penalty.
on 12 Feb 2009
It barely falls under the interstate clause of the Constitution. It is none of Congress's business. This very well may be a federal crime, but Congress needs to stay out of the way and allow law enforcement to do its job. Congress will destroy any criminal case against the company rather than do any good.