Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The peanut scandal - the missing detail

With all the attention paid to the Peanut Corporation of America's problems with salmonella and shipping tainted products, along with the seemingly lax FDA inspections that have led to this miss, there's a couple of details that are getting ignored.

Stewart Parnell, the owner of the company, was on the FDA's Peanut Standards Board. He was appointed to the position in 2005 and was taken off the board only a few days ago.

Also, the company was involved in two lawsuits, in 1990 and 1991, when they supplied peanut products to candy manufacturers containing toxic mold.

article at Wikipedia

Parnell appeared before a Congressional committee today; invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer questions.

This is the type of behavior that makes me want to throw out all corporate law - I don't think crap like this would happen if a company President/CEO/owner could be held personally liable for damages or legal punishment for endangering the public.

article at CNN

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