Food safety advocate calls plant inspection reports troubling
of ConsumerAffairs
The recall of 7 million pounds of Boars Head deli meat may shape up to be the largest food recall of 2024, if not the decade. At least nine people have died from listeria and at least 57 others have been hospitalized.
Bill Marler, a personal injury lawyer and food safety advocate, is calling on Congress to investigate the outbreak tied to one meat processing plant in Virginia. In an interview with Fox Business, Marler said he has reviewed the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS) inspection reports for the plant, calling them some of the most troubling I have seen in 30 years of reviewing hundreds of such reports.
The reports were made public by CBS News, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act filing. The reports describe finding blood and insects in the rooms where meat was being processed and mold growing on some of the slicing equipment.
The reports, filed between January 2022 and Aug. 1, 2024, include accounts of piles of rotting meat and "standing water containing a brown mud/dirt like substance."
Consumers have reacted with disgust on social media. A Reddit poster with the handle Earthlyman summed it up this way:
Horrifying
Wow, thats actually horrifying. Even worse, probably not the only food producer to operate in such conditions.
Marler said the company needs to do more to support the victims, including paying all of their medical costs and compensating them for lost wages.
"They should also turn over all listeria test results over the last few years," Marler said, adding that the company could face potential criminal sanctions for violating the Federal Meat Inspection Act.
The original recall was issued in in July after whole genome sequencing results showed that a Boars Head liverwurst sample collected by the Maryland Department of Health tested positive for the outbreak strain of Listeria monocytogenes, which can be fatal to the old, the young and people with weakened immune systems.
The plant, in Jarratt, Va., has been closed since July.
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-09-04 11:04:45
