by Attorney Fred Pritzker

On May 21, 2009 Valley Meats LLC, a Coal Valley, Illinois, establishment, recalled approximately 95,898 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. This action followed an investigation by Cleveland, OH health officials that identified two eateries that possibly served burgers tainted with E. coli O157:H7. Three Cleveland area residents who became ill in April apparently had eaten at the two establishments, the VFW Hall in North Olmstead and Deekers Side Tracks in Mentor, OH.

A 7- year-old Cleveland girl died from E. coli O157:H7-related complications—hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) that caused kidney failure and then a stroke. (Note: Friends of the girl’s family have set up a memorial fund and a fundraiser is scheduled for Friday, May 29. This family needs support.)

This devastating loss was utterly preventable and points to a food safety system breakdown on many levels.

Federal, state and local law prohibits the sale of adulterated food. If Valley Meats LLC distributed and sold meat products contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 it means the company violated laws that have been on the books for more than a hundred years and failed to properly test and detect lethal pathogens before the products left its facility.

It also means the restaurants that served this poisoned food similarly violated the law. Whether the meat was adulterated when it entered the restaurant, there is no question and no doubt that with proper cooking and handling, any pathogen in the food could and should have been killed off before it caused harm.

Coincidental to this tragedy and illustrative of it, preliminary data published on May 27, 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) indicates that the estimated incidence of E. coli O157:H7 infections did not change significantly when compared with the preceding 3 years. In fact, the percentage of ground beef samples yielding E. coli O157:H7 actually doubled in 2008 compared to 2007. What’s more, none of the targets established by the federal government in its food safety initiative, Healthy People 2010 were met.

I have represented foodborne illness survivors in virtually every major foodborne illness outbreak during the last several years. In virtually every one of those cases, people were sickened or killed not because laws were lacking or technology was insufficient, but rather because of three primal deficiencies: ignorance, sloth and greed. As the Cleveland case illustrates, the companies responsible for this outbreak were either too stupid, too lazy or too greedy or a combination of all three, to prevent the lifelong losses that occurred.

It is only fitting that such wrongdoers be held accountable for the harms and losses they caused. But in these cases that means more than just collection of insurance proceeds. It means actual accountability – the kind that comes from criminal prosecution and payment of punitive damages that actually punish wrongdoers and serves as a deterrent to prevent future outbreaks. Without such deterrence, we can expect more of the same.

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Labels:food safety attorney, ground beef food poisoning