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Product-recall widened in salmonella nut scare
Source: Agencies |
February 14, 2009, Saturday
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HEALTH officials in the state of Texas in the United States said on Thursday that they had ordered the recall of products made at a plant operated by a company at the center of a salmonella outbreak.
They said they had ordered Peanut Corporation of America to recall all products made at its Plainview, Texas, plant, which was closed this week as part of an investigation into the outbreak which has made about 600 people sick and may have killed nine.
"The order was issued after dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers were discovered yesterday in a crawl space above a production area during an in-depth Department of State Health Services inspection," the agency said in a statement.
"The inspection also found that the plant's air handling system was not completely sealed and was pulling debris from the infested crawl space into production areas of the plant resulting in the adulteration of exposed food products."
On Wednesday, Peanut Corp of America owner and president Stewart Parnell refused to testify before a congressional committee that subpoenaed him for questioning.
The salmonella outbreak traced to the company's plant in Blakely, Georgia, has forced one of the biggest food recalls in US history, scared Americans away from one of their staple foods and brought the US Food and Drug Administration under intense scrutiny.
Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that called on Parnell, said he was alarmed to hear about the conditions at the second plant.
"More alarming is the concern that there could be hundreds or even thousands of food processing facilities operating in this country that have never been inspected by the FDA," Stupak said.
They said they had ordered Peanut Corporation of America to recall all products made at its Plainview, Texas, plant, which was closed this week as part of an investigation into the outbreak which has made about 600 people sick and may have killed nine.
"The order was issued after dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers were discovered yesterday in a crawl space above a production area during an in-depth Department of State Health Services inspection," the agency said in a statement.
"The inspection also found that the plant's air handling system was not completely sealed and was pulling debris from the infested crawl space into production areas of the plant resulting in the adulteration of exposed food products."
On Wednesday, Peanut Corp of America owner and president Stewart Parnell refused to testify before a congressional committee that subpoenaed him for questioning.
The salmonella outbreak traced to the company's plant in Blakely, Georgia, has forced one of the biggest food recalls in US history, scared Americans away from one of their staple foods and brought the US Food and Drug Administration under intense scrutiny.
Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that called on Parnell, said he was alarmed to hear about the conditions at the second plant.
"More alarming is the concern that there could be hundreds or even thousands of food processing facilities operating in this country that have never been inspected by the FDA," Stupak said.
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