Sludge Watch ==> Lawyers comment on the Spinach Ecoli Investigation

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

It is odd to watch the Salinas Valley spinach outbreak.  The food producers 
get rewarded with $25M
and the victims of eating the Ecoli O157 contaminated spinach (so far) get 
nothing.

see this commentary on the $25M:

War Funding Puzzlement:
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25844/pub_detail.asp
......................................


Lawyer comments on report entitled "Investigation of an Escherichia coli 
O157:H7 Outbreak Associated with Dole Pre-Packaged Spinach"
29.mar.07
Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20070329/bs_prweb/prweb514124

Lawyer Fred Pritzker examines the need for mandatory federal rules to 
prevent similar outbreaks. "Until we force companies to take these 
precautions before their food products harm consumers, we will continue to 
see more of the same. Stringent rules and site specific analyses are 
required for every individual and entity along the production continuum 
extending from farm to table," states Pritzker. "National standards are 
necessary to police agricultural practices and make sure they are finally 
made as safe as science and human ingenuity permit."

Mr. Pritzker continues, "I have spent years representing seriously injured 
people harmed by foodborne illness outbreaks. In virtually every case, after 
the source of the outbreak has been identified, the producer responsible for 
the tainted product expends a great deal of time, energy and money trying to 
minimize the damage to the firm's reputation. This damage control usually 
involves the hiring of experts and gnashing of teeth along with promises and 
commitments to implement new policies and procedures. Usually these are 
policies and procedures well known to but not practiced by the industry.

Until we force companies to take these precautions before their food 
products harm consumers, we will continue to see more of the same. Stringent 
rules and site specific analyses are required for every individual and 
entity along the production continuum extending from farm to table. . . . 
National standards are necessary to police agricultural practices and make 
sure they are finally made as safe as science and human ingenuity permit."

For the full text of E. coli lawyer Fred Pritzker's opinion piece, please 
see the Pritzker | Ruohonen Web site, http://www.pritzkerlaw.com.