Sara Lee and Listeriosis
April 17, 1999 In an admission that is sure to rock the food industry for years to come, Sara Lee Spokeswoman Theresa Herlevsen said that conditions at its Bil Mar plant "weren't any different from any other food processor".
The Chicago Tribune reporting on Sunday, April 17, 1999 that newly-obtained copies of US Agriculture Department inspection reports reveal that the following conditions were common-place at the Sara Lee plant that sold meat tainted with Listeriosis, killing 16 and causing 5 miscarriages:
o live and dead cockroaches near overs.
o "old meat and debris strewn across the floor"
o areas uncleaned for days on end
o falsification of housekeeping documents that track how well the plant meets cleanliness and preparation standards
o liquid dripping from refrigeration units directly onto hot dogs
o plastic strips and slivers of metal in meats that reached supermarkets
Delmer Jones, chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection locals noted that "if that's normal, the consumer is in for a ride."
Bil Mar plant management on the other hand, claimed that the presence of plastic in their meat products did not meet the USDA's technical term for "adulterated" products.
Turns out that the USDA set up a new inspection system called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). Under the HACCP program, the companies that run the food plants are given the freedom to largely police themselves. USDA inspectors often are left to do little more than fill out forms, push around paper, and get extremely frustrated with the conditions of the plants they are supposed to inspect.
Consumers would clearly be much better off not purchasing heavily processed meat products from companies like Sara Lee.
Safety Number One Priority?
March 3, 1999 "The safety of everyone who eats our products is our number-one priority, and therefore we are voluntarily taking this precautionary measure," said George A. Chivari, president and chief executive officer of Bil Mar Foods, as quoted on the Sara Lee web site.
Bil Mar is the division of Sara Lee that sold hot dogs laced with Listeria bacteria. These hot dogs (along other meat products) have killed at least 20 people. They could have prevented the "outbreak" of listeriosis by performing tests that would have cost the company approximately $3000 per day per plant, as reported in the Chicago Tribune on January 24th of this year.
So what do you think? Is the "safety of everyone who eats" Bil Mar's products really Sara Lee's "number-one priority"?
And why do we let these kinds of people have so much power in our country, the best democracy in the world?
I just called the Sara Lee hot line phone number listed in the "Bil Mar Foods Announces Voluntary Recall" document located at
http://www.saralee.com/homepage.html#
It said that consumers with questions about the recall should call 1.800.247-8339. So I did that and the person working the phone claimed to have perhaps heard a rumor that some people had gotten very sick, maybe just maybe four had died, but the supervisor got on the phone and made it very clear that they didn't have any information at all about that sort of thing. I needed to call Sara Lee Customer Service at 1.800.654.3650, which I will do tomorrow morning.
After some searching on the Internet, I found the following quote from Nando Media/Reuter News:
"The death toll from tainted Sara Lee Corp. hot dogs and lunch meat has risen to 20, with nearly 100 others becoming ill from the meat, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said Monday." Those 20 deaths represent, by the way, the end of life for 14 adults and 6 miscarriages/stillbirths.
Some "background" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site: 'In the United States, an estimated 1,100 persons become seriously ill with listeriosis each year. Of these, 250 die."
Can't wait to see what Sara Lee says tomorrow. But there was nothing on their web site and this news is not exactly making headlines. Wonder why not...
Oh, also, when you call 1.800.247-8339, you first hear a LONG and I mean LONG detailed recording about the "voluntary recall" and which packages are affected. At the very end of this monotonously cheerful monologue, the woman concludes by saying:
"We are sorry if this recall has caused you any inconvenience."
Can you imagine saying that if your actions just killed 20 people? What if the daughter of a man who died listened to that?
Who Says They Don't Care?
3/4/99, Chicago: Jeffrey Smith, Sara Lee spokesman and Director of Media Relations, spoke with the Millenium Profit Report today about the deadly outbreak of listeriosis emanating from the Bil Mar plant in Zeeland, Michigan.
When asked if Sara Lee accepts the Center for Disease Control's investigation that has identified a total of 20 deaths from the contaminated meat, Smith replied that "Sara Lee does not question the CDC report." This is probably about as close as anyone will come to getting an admission of responsibility for the deaths and serious illness that have spread across at least 13 states.
Smith noted that Sara Lee has just announced and begun taking "unprecedented steps" to ensure that its meats are not contaminated. "We are sampling significant portions of our product," said Smith. "The test results will be available in a week. Once the products are proven safe, we will release them for sale."
Smith also reinforced that food safety is Sara Lee's "top priority".
Smith could not explain why such testing was not done prior to the outbreak of listeriosis. He suggested that the Millenium Profit Report contact the USDA to obtain a record of its inspections of the Bil Mar plant in Zeeland, Michigan.
Finally, Mr. Smith did not know if Sara Lee was in contact with any of the victims' families. This leaves open the possibility that Sara Lee is working behind the scenes to negotiate settlements with families of victims to minimize the negative marketing impact of this deadly contamination. This very real concern is backed up by Smith who told the Associated Press that Sara Lee plans to intensify "marketing activities". He refused to elaborate on what that might entail.
Dying from Listeriosis
January 24, 1999: 11 people have died so far in an outbreak of this deadly bacterial contamination, the result of tainted meat sold by Sara Lee. The Sunday Chicago Tribune put the story on its front page with the headline: "A rare disease, a deadly mystery". Above the headline, they had this lengthy subtext: "Researchers investigate door-to-door and used genetic tests to uncover the latest outbreak of listeriosis, a food-borne illness that meat processors can do little to banish entirely from their facilities."
Now, that sounded like a whitewash for corporate America to me, but my wife wisely suggested that I read the article; perhaps it really is a toughie for those ever-so-careful companies. Here is what I found inside the main section:
"The only solution, according to health experts, would be for the federal government o order meat processors to inspect for the deadly bacteria before the meat makes it to supermarket shelves, a move that would undoubtedly lead to higher costs for consumers. Such tests can cost up to $3,200-a-day for an average processing plant."
Well, that lays out the issue really clearly, doesn't it? Turns out that meat processors can do "lots" to banish listeriosis from their facilities. All they have to do is test for the contamination. $3,200 a day? I bet Sara Lee is going to pay lots more than that "per day" to settle with the families of the victims of this outbreak.
But of course companies will not perform these tests -- even if they realize that they may have to pay more later on to compensate victims -- unless the government forces companies to take those steps. Our government will not do that because they don't have enough inspectors to enforce the law (another truly sterling legacy of the Reagan Administration) and because that would smack of "Big Government" interference in the holy goings-on of the "free market".
And we end up with this scenario: The CEO of a meat processing company knows that his company could go a long
way to avoiding outbreaks of killer diseases like listeriosis by spending $3,200 a day for testing. He chooses
to not do this. Eleven people then die of listeriosis.
Should that CEO be indicted for manslaughter? Or is it just one of those things that are going to happen in this
big, complex world we live in?
Reporting the Listeriosis Story
January 24, 1999: The Chicago Tribune also had in its Sunday paper a fascinating analysis of the media coverage of this story by Tim Jones, titled "A major outbreak, but little attention". It noted the "seeming collective indifference" of the media in reporting this story, compared to the coverage of the Hudson Foods recall of 25 million pounds of meat (a response to an e-coli outbreak that killed not a single person). Mr. Jones concluded that the coverage has been light because it has been pushed aside by other, bigger stories: impeachment, big winter storm, Michael Jordan's retirement.
Oh, yeah, sure. One thing that Mr. Jones neglected to mention or analyze was the amount of advertising money
paid by the unnamed company to each of these media sources each year. Media empires will go to great lengths to
cover up a fundamental conflict of interest in their work: their profits and therefore the jobs of upper management
in these companies depend greatly on advertising revenue from other companies.
If you collect $10 million a year from an unnamed meat processing company, are you going to be openly and honestly
critical of that company?
And that argument about bigger stories crowding out this "little" story? Also hogwash, to my mind. Let's change the scenario a little bit: suppose it was discovered that (like the Tylenol tampering years past) an individual or, even worse, a radical political organization was deliberately contaminating the food. Do you think that the story would have been covered in the same way?
No way! It would have been a not-to-be-missed opportunity by the media and the right-wing pundits who dominate the airwaves to sensationalize the heck out of the story and put out many dire warnings about the growth of terrorism in this country (interestingly, however, a similar outcry has not resulted from the nationwide wave of bombings of abortion clinics and killings of abortion providers).
And I admit that there is a difference between someone intentionally contaminating food and an unnamed company intentionally refusing to test their food for contamination. I would suggest, however, that the difference is not as great as the unnamed company and the right-wing pundits would have us believe.
[3/3/99 Update: I just read in a small article buried in the paper (I think in the business section) that the death toll from Sara Lee's irresponsibility has now reached 20 people. Imagine if it were your mother or wife or son or uncle who was killed by Sara Lee's refusal to give up $3000 of profits from its plants each day.]
About the Millenium Profit Report
The Millenium Profit Report (formerly known as the Feuerstein Report) is a new and fresh journalistic venture that offers coverage of breaking stories, or stories that have broken under the weight of corporations working hard to suppress those stories, addressing the way that corporate profits are generated, manipulated, hidden and distributed as we approach and move through the Millenium.
To report a breaking or broken story, send me an email.
Safety Number One Priority?
Who Says They Don't Care?
Dying from Listeriosis
Reporting the Listeriosis Story
Bil Mar Plant a Mess
© 1999 Steven Feuerstein. All rights reserved.