Thread: Egg Recall Expanded After Salmonella Outbreak

Egg Recall Expanded After Salmonella Outbreak
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: August 18, 2010

An Iowa company on Wednesday broadened a nationwide recall of its eggs to 380 million after some of its facilities were linked to an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened hundreds of people across the country.

The outbreak, which federal officials said was the largest of its type related to eggs in years, began in May, just weeks before new government safety rules went into effect that were intended to greatly reduce the risk of salmonella in eggs.

The company behind the recall, Wright County Egg, of Galt, Iowa, is owned by Jack DeCoster, who has had run-ins with regulators over poor or unsafe working conditions, environmental violations, the harassment of workers and the hiring of illegal immigrants.

The salmonella outbreak began in May, when several states began seeing an increase in the number of cases of a common type of bacterial illness known as Salmonella Enteritidis, said Dr. Christopher R. Braden, acting director of food-borne diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The numbers continued to grow, and in June and July, a database used to track disease nationwide found that the number of cases had risen from a historical average of about 50 a week to about 200.

Public health officials in California, Minnesota and Colorado determined that many of the people who had gotten sick had eaten food containing eggs. Further investigation traced many tainted eggs to Wright County Egg.

The company announced on Friday that it was recalling 228 million eggs that it had sold since mid-May. On Wednesday, it added another 152 million eggs to the recall. Many of the affected eggs have long since been cooked and eaten, but millions could still be stored in refrigerators.

The company said the recalled eggs came from five plants and were distributed across the country under the brand names Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms, Kemps, James Farms, Glenview and Pacific Coast. (Dutch Farms said Wright County packaged eggs under its brand without permission.)

Consumers were told to return the eggs to stores.

Dr. Braden said that it was not yet possible to say how many people had fallen ill in the outbreak although it certainly numbered in the hundreds. Typically in salmonella outbreaks, only about one in 30 cases is reported to authorities, he said, so thousands of people may have been affected. He said there were no reports of deaths.

Salmonella can cause diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pains. In rare cases, it can cause more serious illness, including arterial infections.

The pathogen is transferred to eggs by infected hens and it can be found inside eggs that appear normal. The bacteria is destroyed by heat but people can become sick if they eat raw or incompletely cooked eggs. Federal regulators have grappled with the problem of salmonella in eggs since it first emerged in the 1980s. But proposals to improve regulations were largely unsuccessful until a year ago, when the Food and Drug Administration announced a new set of rules, which became effective on July 9.

The rules initially apply to egg producers with 50,000 or more laying hens, a category that federal officials said included Wright County Egg. The rules require producers to establish measures to control rodents that can pass salmonella to hens and to prevent contamination by workers or equipment. They also establish testing requirements for poultry houses and eggs.

In a news release on July 9, the F.D.A. said that the rules would prevent as many as 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths a year related to the consumption of tainted eggs.

Dr. Braden said that investigators looking into the outbreak found cases in which restaurants had used raw eggs in a salad dressing or mixed raw eggs into soup. A case in California in May was traced to a catered event where people had eaten profiteroles containing a custard made with eggs, according to officials in that state.

Hinda Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Wright County Egg, said that the company had put the required federal measures in place by the July deadline. She said that before that date, the company had participated in a voluntary industry program that included steps similar to some of the new federal requirements.

Mr. DeCoster is well known to federal regulators.

In 1997, one of his companies agreed to pay a $2 million fine by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for violations in the workplace and worker housing. Officials said workers were forced to handle manure and dead chickens with their bare hands and to live in trailers infested with rats. The labor secretary in the Clinton administration, Robert B. Reich, called Mr. DeCoster’s operation [b]“an agricultural sweatshop.â€

DeCoster linked to nationwide egg recall
Blog post by Philip Brasher • pbrasher@dmreg.com • August 18, 2010

A livestock industry giant with a long history of immigration and environmental problems is now connected to a nationwide recall of eggs that the government blames for an outbreak of salmonella poisoning.


Jack DeCoster, holds a door open in one of his hen houses in Maine. The company he founded, which has Iowa operations, is now connected to a nationwide recall of eggs that the government blames for an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. (Register file photo)


Wright County Egg, part of the DeCoster family agribusiness operations, issued a recall Friday for millions of eggs it had shipped since May 19 to wholesalers, distribution centers and food service companies in California, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota Wisconsin and Iowa that distribute nationwide.

The company also is being sued in connection with the salmonella poisoning of a Wisconsin resident, and a dozen more lawsuits linked to the outbreak are in the works, said Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer that specializes in food poisonings.

Federal investigators are working to determine the cause of the outbreak. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week that it has seen a four-fold increase in the normal number of cases of salmonella enteritidis, a strain associated with eggs.

A woman who answered the phone at a number in Galt listed for both the egg operation and DeCoster Farms of Iowa referred a reporter’s questions about the recall to the govenrment’s media hotlline. A phone message for Peter DeCoster, the son of the operation’s founder, Austin Jackson DeCoster, was not immediately returned.

The elder DeCoster, a Maine native who set up business in Wright County in the 1980s, pleaded guilty to federal immigration charges in 2003 and paid a record $2.1 million in penalties. In 2001, the state Supreme Court ruled that DeCoster, a repeat violator of state environmental laws, could finance, but not build, hog confinement operations for his son. Earlier this year, the elder DeCoster paid a fine to settle animal state cruelty charges against his egg operations in Maine.

The lawsuit filed in a state court in Kenosha County, Wis., alleges that Tanja Dzinovic was sickened in June after eating a cobb salad that included hard-boiled eggs. Tests showed she had been infected with salmonella enteritidis, according to the lawsuit. She was released from the hospital but continues to suffer from gastrointestinal symptoms, the lawsuit said.

Kevin Vinchattle, executive director of the Iowa Egg Council, a producer trade group, said other egg farms are watching the case. Wright County Egg is not a member of the group.

“Whatever is happening with this particular investigation, we’re concerned about understanding what is happened so things like this don’t happen in the future,â€

Why would any reputable Grocer buy anything from these known crooks ? Makes me wonder about the mentality/ethics of Albertson's,Ralphs etc. owners.

Egg Farm Owner in Recall Known for Violations
Businessman Jack DeCoster has Paid at Least $4 Million in Fines, Settlements with Government Regulators

(CBS/AP) Updated at 6:23 p.m. ET

The owner of an Iowa farm that recalled 380 million eggs this week as part of a nationwide recall in a salmonella outbreak has had multiple run-ins with prosecutors and regulators, who have said the man imposed "morally repugnant" working conditions and was a "habitual violator" of environmental laws.

Jack DeCoster owns Wright County Egg, the farm linked to the salmonella strain in eggs that have already sickened more than 1,000 people. On Friday, the nationwide egg recall expanded to include a second Iowa egg farm in the ongoing investigation.

Second Iowa Firm Recalls Eggs

Wright County Egg is already facing at least two lawsuits related to the recall. One is from food distributor Dutch Farms, which says the company used unauthorized cartons to package and sell eggs under its brand name without its knowledge. The other is from a person who said they became ill after eating tainted eggs in a salad at a restaurant in Kenosha, Wis.

DeCoster has been cited for numerous health, safety and employment violations in the past. In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster's farm in Turner, Maine.

It's one of many stories the website Grist.org cited in a compilation of stories about DeCoster's past.

Phone calls made to Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa, were answered by an automated message directing callers to a recall hotline.

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that those charges, brought by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, included workers being forced to use their bare hands to handle manure and dead chickens. Farm workers were also forced to live in rat-infested trailers, officials told the newspaper.

''The conditions we found were among the worst we found around the country,'' Robert Reich, President Clinton's secretary of labor, told the Times when the charges were brought to light in 1996. ''The fact that it's in central Maine rather than in New York City or Los Angeles doesn't change the nature of the offense. It's morally repugnant.''

Reich also referred to DeCoster's farm as "an agricultural sweatshop."

More recently, immigration officers raided DeCoster's businesses. In 2003, DeCoster paid another $2 million in a settlement with the federal government after he pleaded guilty to charges of knowingly hiring immigrants who were in the country illegally, the Times reported.

In 2000, Iowa's attorney general called DeCoster a "habitual violator" of state environmental laws, a label that enhanced penalties for violations. At the time, DeCoster was fined $150,000 for violations at his Iowa pig farm, where "hundreds of thousands of pigs each year" were raised "in large confinement feeding operations."

DeCoster was the first person to be classified a habitual violator in Iowa, according to the attorney general's office.

www.cbsnews.com

jean wrote:
"On Thursday, The New York Times reported that those charges, brought by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, included workers being forced to use their bare hands to handle manure and dead chickens. Farm workers were also forced to live in rat-infested trailers, officials told the newspaper."

This strongly emphasizes the point that failure to enforce our laws of immigration AND labor is as just bad for illegal alien workers and their safety and well-being as it is for 1) American workers and 2) the nation as a whole.

Added to homepage
http://www.alipac.us/article5584.html

This is part of the article which may not have included in other articles posted.

http://cbs4.com/national/egg.recall.sal ... 72949.html


DeCoster is no stranger to controversy in his food and farm operations:


In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster's farm in Turner, Maine. Then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich said conditions were "as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop." He cited unguarded machinery, electrical hazards, exposure to harmful bacteria and other unsanitary conditions.
In 2000, Iowa designated DeCoster a "habitual violator" of environmental regulations for problems that included hog manure runoff into waterways. The label made him subject to increased penalties and prohibited him from building new farms.
In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a more than $1.5 million settlement of an employment discrimination lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by some supervisory workers at DeCoster's Wright County plants.
In 2007, 51 workers were arrested during an immigration raid at six DeCoster egg farms. The farm had been the subject of at least three previous raids.
In June 2010, Maine Contract Farming — the successor company to DeCoster Egg Farms — agreed in state court to pay $25,000 in penalties and to make a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture over animal cruelty allegations that were spurred by a hidden-camera investigation by an animal welfare organization.

This just gets worse and worse: and this is what our own govenment has been protecting by its refusal to enforce our immigration and labor laws!

Iowa Farms in Egg Recall Have Close Ties
Sunday, 22 Aug 2010 07:10 AM

Two Iowa farms that together recalled more than half a billion potentially tainted eggs this month share close ties, including suppliers of chickens and feed.

Both farms are linked to businessman Austin "Jack" DeCoster, who has been cited for numerous health, safety and employment violations over the years. DeCoster owns Wright County Egg, the original farm that recalled 380 million eggs Aug. 13 after they were linked to more than 1,000 reported cases of salmonella poisoning.

Another of his companies, Quality Egg, supplies young chickens and feed to both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, the second farm that recalled another 170 million eggs a week later.

Jewanna Porter, a spokeswoman for the egg industry, said the two companies share other suppliers as well, but she did not name them.

The cause of the outbreaks is so far unknown, as Food and Drug Administration investigators are still on the ground at the farms trying to figure it out. The federal Centers for Disease Control has said the number of illnesses, estimated as high as 1,300, would likely grow.

DeCoster is no stranger to controversy in his food and farm operations:

— In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster's farm in Turner, Maine. Then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich said conditions were "as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop." He cited unguarded machinery, electrical hazards, exposure to harmful bacteria and other unsanitary conditions.

— In 2000, Iowa designated DeCoster a "habitual violator" of environmental regulations for problems that included hog manure runoff into waterways. The label made him subject to increased penalties and prohibited him from building new farms.

— In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a more than $1.5 million settlement of an employment discrimination lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by some supervisory workers at DeCoster's Wright County plants.

— In 2007, 51 workers were arrested during an immigration raid at six DeCoster egg farms. The farm had been the subject of at least three previous raids.

— In June 2010, Maine Contract Farming — the successor company to DeCoster Egg Farms — agreed in state court to pay $25,000 in penalties and to make a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture over animal cruelty allegations that were spurred by a hidden-camera investigation by an animal welfare organization.

It is unclear what role DeCoster's company played in the current salmonella outbreak. The FDA investigation could take months, and sources of contamination are often difficult to find. The current recall goes back to April, and many of the eggs have already been consumed.

Still, DeCoster's Wright County Egg is already facing at least two lawsuits related to the egg recall. One is from food distributor Dutch Farms, which says the company used unauthorized cartons to package and sell eggs under its brand without its knowledge.

The other is from a person who said they became ill after eating tainted eggs in a salad at a restaurant in Kenosha, Wis.

The CDC said investigations by 10 states since April have identified 26 cases where more than one person became ill. Preliminary information showed that Wright was the supplier in at least 15 of those.

Almost 2,000 illnesses from the strain of salmonella linked to both recalls were reported between May and July, nearly 1,300 more than usual, the CDC said. No deaths have been reported.

The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight hours to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. The disease can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems.

——

Associated Press Writer Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/US-Tainted-Eg ... /id/368083

In 2000, Iowa's attorney general called DeCoster a "habitual violator" of state environmental laws, a label that enhanced penalties for violations. At the time, DeCoster was fined $150,000 for violations at his Iowa pig farm, where "hundreds of thousands of pigs each year" were raised "in large confinement feeding operations."

DeCoster was the first person to be classified a habitual violator in Iowa, according to the attorney general's office.

How can this guy be allowed to remain in business? Why hasn't his business license been yanked?? Does someone have to die first as a result of his negligence? He must have some friends in high places...

This is crazy! I've been eating Egg Beaters for the last few days as a result of this insanity. I'm getting used to the taste now and don't know when I will go back to regular eggs again.