More on the Peanut Butter recall

From the Washington Post:

Peanut Processor Knowingly Sold Tainted Products
The Georgia peanut plant linked to a salmonella outbreak that has killed eight people and sickened 500 more across the country knowingly shipped out contaminated peanut butter 12 times in the past two years, federal officials said yesterday.

Officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which have been investigating the outbreak of salmonella illness, said yesterday that Peanut Corporation of America found salmonella in internal tests a dozen times in 2007 and 2008 but sold the products anyway, sometimes after getting a negative finding from a different laboratory.

Companies are not required to disclose their internal tests to either the FDA or state regulators, so health officials did not know of the problem.

The peanut butter and paste made at the company's Blakely, Ga., plant are not sold directly to stores but are used by manufacturers to make crackers, cookies, energy bars, cereal, ice cream, candies and even dog biscuits. Some of the country's biggest foodmakers, including Kellogg and McKee Foods, which produces Little Debbie brand snacks, have recalled more than 100 products made with the tainted ingredients, and the list keeps growing.

Federal investigators also said yesterday that they had found four strains of salmonella at the Georgia plant, including one in a sample taken from the floor near a washroom. Only the Typhimurium strain of Salmonella enterica has been linked to the outbreak.

"There is a salmonella problem at the plant," said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC's division of food-borne, bacterial and mycotic diseases.

Hey -- let them self-regulate, everything will be just fine. It is strange how myopic things can be. I was out at the dairy we use picking up some milk for the store a number of months ago and the agents from the FDA had reviewed their pasteurization records and were concerned about the Fat Free milk. We didn't get any that day and the owner of the dairy brought it out to our store that following Saturday. The oversight is very high. Compare this to the problem that Creekstone Farms is having getting permission to test their cattle for BSE (Mad Cow Disease). I wrote about it in March 2006: Testing for BSE and an update on August of 2006: Testing for BSE - more. Creekstone has run this up as far as the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and is still trying. From the Creekstone website (click on the read more link):

Creekstone Farms, which provides high-quality Black Angus beef to distributors in the United States, Japan, Korea, and Europe, has been attempting for several years to meet its customers' interest in beef from BSE-tested cattle, which they currently can obtain from Asian and European meat processors. USDA has insisted that BSE testing in the United States may only be conducted by facilities under contract to USDA, not by private parties.

USDA currently tests far less than 1% of the cattle slaughtered in the United States for BSE. In 2006, USDA reduced its BSE testing ten-fold, yet it refuses to permit private companies such as Creekstone Farms to supplement the federal testing. BSE has only been detected twice in U.S.-born cattle, and never in cattle born since measures to arrest the spread of BSE were implemented in the U.S. in 1997.

Who has the USDA in their pocket? Why are they stalling on this.