Factory Knowingly Sent Contaminated Peanut Butter, Officials Say [View All]

[cynatnite]

The Georgia peanut plant linked to a salmonella outbreak that has killed eight people and sickened another 500 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 salmonella outbreak, said yesterday that the 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.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012702992.html