Peanut seller takes Fifth at salmonella hearing
Published: February 12, 2009, 12:30 am
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WASHINGTON — See the jar, the congressman challenged Stewart Parnell, holding up a container of the peanut seller’s products and asking if he’d dare eat them. Parnell invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The owner of the peanut company at the heart of the massive salmonella outbreak refused to answer the lawmaker’s questions Wednesday about the bacteria-tainted products he defiantly told employees to ship to about 50 manufacturers of cookies, crackers and ice cream.
“Turn them loose,” Parnell had told his plant manager in an internal e-mail disclosed at the House hearing. The e-mail referred to products that once were deemed contaminated but were cleared in a second test last year.
Summoned by congressional subpoena, the owner of Peanut Corp. of America repeatedly invoked his right not to incriminate himself at the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the salmonella outbreak that has sickened about 600 people, might be linked to nine deaths — including one reported Wednesday in Ohio — and resulted in one of the largest product recalls, involving more than 1,900 food items.
Parnell sat at the witness table, as Rep. Greg Walden, ROre., held up a clear jar of his company’s products wrapped in crime-scene tape and asked if he would eat them.
“Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U. S. Constitution,” Parnell responded.
After he repeated the statement several times, lawmakers dismissed him from the hearing.
Shortly after Parnell’s appearance, a lab tester told the panel that the company discovered salmonella at its Blakely, Ga., plant as far back as 2006. Food and Drug Administration officials told lawmakers that more federal inspections could have helped prevent the outbreak.
“We appear to have a total systemic breakdown,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee’s investigations subcommittee.
Cookies, candy, crackers, granola bars and other products made with contaminated peanuts have been shipped to schools, stores and nursing homes, prompting the massive recall. The government raided the company’s Georgia plant Monday, and Peanut Corp. closed its Plainview, Texas, facility.
A federal criminal investigation is under way.
The House panel released e-mails obtained by its investigators showing that Parnell ordered products identified as tainted with salmonella to be shipped and quoting his complaints that tests discovering the contaminated food were “costing us huge $$$$$.”
In mid-January, after the national outbreak was tied to his company, Parnell told FDA officials that he and his company “desperately at least need to turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money.”
In a separate message to his employees, Parnell insisted that the outbreak did not start at his plant, calling that a misunderstanding by the media and public health officials. “No salmonella has been found anywhere else in our products, or in our plants, or in any unopened containers of our product,” he said in a Jan. 12 e-mail.
In another exchange, Parnell complained to a worker after being notified that salmonella had been found in more products. “I go [through] this about once a week,” he wrote in a June 2008 e-mail. “I will hold my breath . . . again.”
Last year, when a final lab test found salmonella, Parnell expressed concern about the cost and delays involved.
“We need to discuss this,” he wrote in an Oct. 6 e-mail to Sammy Lightsey, his plant manager. “The time lapse, beside the cost, is costing us huge $$$$$ and causing obviously a huge lapse in time from the time we pick up peanuts until the time we can invoice.”
Lightsey also invoked his right not to answer questions when he appeared alongside Parnell before the panel.
“Their behavior is criminal, in my opinion. I want to see jail time,” said Jeffrey Almer, whose 72-year-old mother died Dec. 21 in Minnesota of salmonella poisoning after eating Peanut Corp.’s peanut butter.
Almer and other relatives of victims urged lawmakers to approve mandatory product recalls and improve public notice about contaminated food.
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