Posted on 10/05/2006 5:25:03 PM PDT by Shermy
On Wednesday, October 5, officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) visited the San Juan Bautista facilities of Natural Selection Foods as part of the ongoing investigation that the FDA has been conducting related to the e coli contamination of spinach. The agents' requests focused on documents including agricultural testing results, sales information, business process information, regulatory compliance information, regulatory and environmental training records, meeting logs, employment records, and document storage records.
According to Natural Selection Foods Chief Operating Office Charles Sweat, "Most of the documents we shared yesterday had already been provided to FDA and California Department of Health Services (CDHS) investigators at their request. The documents we provided yesterday ¯ many of the same documents we had provided to the FDA and CDHS ¯ confirmed that we had been fully cooperative and forthcoming in providing all information previously."
It appears that the focus of this latest stage of the investigation continues to be on the fields where the spinach the company purchased was grown by third party growers. "The health of consumers is our top priority. As we have from the start, we will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation. We welcome all efforts to trace this problem back to its source so that the industry has the information necessary to ensure public health in the future," said Sweat.
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Just 3rd party growers?
"...The search for the outbreak's source continues to focus on California's Central Valley. On Wednesday, agents from the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration's criminal investigations office executed search warrants at the Natural Selection Foods LLC plant in San Juan Bautista and Growers Express in Salinas to see whether they violated food safety and environmental laws.
"We are investigating allegations that certain spinach growers and distributors may not have taken all necessary or appropriate steps to ensure that their spinach was safe before they were placed into interstate commerce," U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said.
So sad.
.
A "fresh spinach smoothie"? Egad...
Exactly. Poor child had to have a spinach smoothie and then DIE from it.
This was the ultimate in Child Abuse.
Our 5 year old grandson refuses to eat anything that is green.
It’s sad to hear about this poor kid’s death and I really know you’re joking, but I cringe a bit a calling it child abuse.
Maybe the kid really liked spinach smoothies.
As a little kid I absolutely loved Brussels sprouts but wouldn’t go anywhere near peas.
I’d eat my Norwegian grandmother’s creamed fish balls but wouldn’t eat meatloaf for a time. My nephew would eat green foods but nothing that was round: peas, grapes, he's roll them around his plate saying "Balls...balls.
Go figure.
And I hope the FDA and the growers resolve this soon because I really like fresh spinach and I miss it.
..sweet conscientious parents....mom was just trying to get good food into her son....she added other ingredients to make it taste good.
"We are investigating allegations that certain spinach growers and distributors may not have taken all necessary or appropriate steps
I haven't purchased any produce since this problem came to light. They are so focused on spinach only when many other produce is handled by these same growers. My supermarket says any kind of bagged salads are rotting on the shelves since many people simply have written the products off completely
The toddler fell ill after having a fresh spinach smoothie
Yikes!!!!! I can't think of anything less appealing, especially for a toddler
My almost-2-year-old adores broccoli. I buy the fresh kind and lightly steam it.
Oh, what a tragedy for these folks.
Good for you. The linked article at #10 has a statement of what these pre-washed packagers do...or supposed to do. I suspect a bunch or more of tainted spinach got into the tank, someone forgot to chlorinate or corners purposely cut, and much more spinach got cross-contaminated.
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THREE WASHINGS ARE STANDARD
Companies and many food experts say the industry's process of washing lettuce and spinach is superior to what consumers do at home. Every company may have different procedures, but here's a general look at the process:
Arrival
• Produce arrives at processing plant in bins.
• Workers, wearing boots, rubber gloves, gowns and hairnets, inspect it for quality, remove twigs, clumps of dirt.
Wash/rinse
• Produce goes into agitating tank. Water is lightly chlorinated. Primary intent is to remove field debris.
• Major cleaning occurs in another tank with more heavily chlorinated water; or as produce moves via chute in a stream of chlorinated water, nozzles overhead spray chlorinated water, too.
• The third wash is more of a rinse to rid the produce of chlorine so there's no odor when bagged.
Dry
• Produce is spun-dried.
Bagged
• Produce is bagged, either via machine or by hand.
Sources: University of California, Davis; Scientific Certification Systems
every kid in america will cut this out and put it on the refrigerator door. "mommmm, this is why i should not eat spinach!"
he prolly warned his mom that he would die, too
We have had 18 people die within the last week here in Panama, 13 of them in one day. They still don´t know what has caused the deaths. The health officials here and in Atlanta say there are traces of toxic poisonings. All but four of the victims were men. Nearly all were 60 years or older. They came from different communities all over Panama and there isn´t much to tie them together. I thought of the spinich posionings in the states but people here are not big on spinich. There are still another 10 people in intensive care who who might pull through as have three other victims.
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