WASHINGTON - Jeffrey Almer's 72-year-old mother, Shirley, died in December from salmonella poisoning.
"Cancer couldn't kill her, but peanut butter did," said Almer, whose mother ate tainted peanut butter in a Minnesota rehabilitation center where she was being treated for a urinary tract infection. With a visibly controlled sense of anger, Almer told a hushed congressional committee yesterday that, the day before his mother was supposed to return home, doctors unexpectedly gave her just hours to live.
Weeks after the Food and Drug Administration traced a deadly salmonella outbreak to a Georgia peanut plant that knowingly sold bacteria-laced products to dozens of food-makers, the families of victims arrived on Capitol Hill to voice their outrage at Peanut Corp. of America. The representative of a testing lab, calling it "virtually unheard of" for anyone to release a product after testing positive for toxins, called on Congress to demand more oversight and quality control at the FDA.
Stewart Parnell, Peanut Corp.'s owner and president, refused to answer the committee's questions, repeatedly invoking his right not to incriminate himself.
The salmonella outbreak has claimed nine lives - news of the ninth fatality, an elderly Ohio woman, arrived while the congressional hearing was under way - and it is blamed for 600 illnesses. It prompted one of the largest recalls ever, with more than 1,800 products pulled from store shelves.
"The blood of eight victims are on their hands," Almer said of Peanut Corp. at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee before learning news of the ninth death. "I want to see them serve jail time."
Lou Tousignant's father, Clifford, a highly decorated Korean War veteran with three Purple Hearts, died in a Minnesota nursing home in January after eating salmonella-tainted peanut butter. After playing a moving video tribute that left many in the audience wiping away tears, Tousignant asked how an outbreak of this magnitude could be allowed to happen.
"Please do your job," Tousignant told the committee's members. "How can we truly be the leader of the free world when we can't keep our citizens safe from the food we eat?"
Peter Hurley, father of a 3-year-old severely sickened in early January by the outbreak, said that when his son, Jacob, started experiencing symptoms at the onset of salmonella poisoning, Jacob turned to the very comfort food that was making him ill: Keebler's Austin Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter.
