Personal Injury Law

My view of Food Poisoning Law in Australia and New Zealand

Posted on September 08, 2010
Although food poisoning is a prevalent issue in Australia and New Zealand, both countries have taken major legislative efforts over the past decade to better regulate and enforce food and hygiene standards. Although both have similar food regulations, they have different legal regimes that treat food poisoning cases differently...

Nine dead, over 700 sickened by Salmonella Peanuts and Stewart Parnell is a free man?

Posted on September 08, 2010
Thinking I had to be up at 4:30 AM this morning to participate in a phone conference (it is actually Friday morning – I'm a day ahead here in Australia), I awoke at 3:30 AM to Mary Clare Jalonick's article about Stewart Parnell's new job – consulting for the peanut industry – REALLY? Her best opening lines: The peanut industry executive whose filthy processing plants were blamed in a Salmonella outbreak two years ago that killed nine people and sickened hundreds more is back in the business...

3rd Australian Food Safety Conference

Posted on September 06, 2010
Great thing about wireless on a plane traveling for 20 hours is that you can work constantly.  I am just about finished with my PowerPoint for my speech on September 9th. (AUS2010)  Blank slide is a video.

New Zealand Food Authority Conference

Posted on September 06, 2010
My topic is "The True Cost of Foodborne Illness."  I decided to use the Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella Outbreak from 2008 - 2009 to show the problem and walk through some solutions. (Download PDF Slides).  The blank slide is a video...

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The reason I have funded Real Raw Milk Facts

Posted on September 06, 2010
I am sitting in the Melbourne Airport about to board a plane to Tasmania for a few days when I saw the Denver Post article on raw milk and the toll it too on the Pierce family. Mary Pierce and her husband, Mike, did research online before deciding to try raw goat's milk because their son was allergic to pasteurized milk...

1,469 Salmonella Enteritidis Illnesses now linked to Wright County Egg

Posted on September 05, 2010
In July 2010, CDC identified a nationwide sustained increase in the number of Salmonella Enteritidis isolates with PFGE pattern JEGX01.0004 uploaded to PulseNet, the national subtyping network made up of state and local public health laboratories and federal food regulatory laboratories that performs molecular surveillance of foodborne infections...

Food Safety Speeches 2010 and 2011

Posted on September 05, 2010
In between my day job as managing partner at Marler Clark, my evening job as blogger at Marler Blog and my middle of the night job as publisher at Food Safety News, I spend some time traveling the world pitching 'why it is a bad idea to poison your customers...

Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, new FSIS Chief speaks on non-O157 E. coli

Posted on September 04, 2010
William Neuman of the New York Times got Dr. Hagen on record this week in his article, 'Beef Recall Heats Up Fight to Tighten Rules:' Dr. Hagen has yet to say publicly what she plans to do. But in a written statement provided to The New York Times, she said, 'In order to best prevent illnesses and deaths from dangerous E...

Food Safety in the Bush and Obama years - Has there been real change?

Posted on September 04, 2010
We compiled a bit of data and some cool charts to try and see the differences between the last two years of the Bush administration and the first two years of the Obama term.  Download all the slides here - Obama v Bush

Food Safety News to provide $25,000 scholarship for consumer advocacy

Posted on September 03, 2010
In less than two weeks (on September 14) the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, headed by Representatives Dingell (D-MI), Waxman (D-CA), and Stupak (D-MI), will hold what has become an annual event--yet another hearing on the failings of the food industry to provide consumers safe food...

USDA and FSIS, it is time to act on non-E. coli O157:H7's that cause human illness

Posted on September 02, 2010
The CDC estimates that "non-O157 STECs (like O26, O45, 0103, O111, O121, and O145) cause 36,700 illnesses, 1,100 hospitalizations and 30 deaths in America each year.' And, with the outbreak of E. coli O26 in Cargill hamburger that was announced last weekend, I frankly fail to see what more needs to be said to convince the USDA and FSIS to label these bugs as adulterants...

Fourth Salmonella Enteritidis Lawsuit Filed Against Wright County Egg - And, the FBI is in Iowa

Posted on September 01, 2010
Our fourth food poisoning lawsuit was filed today in the enormous egg recall and Salmonella outbreak tied to two Iowa egg farms. The lawsuit was filed against Quality Egg (doing business as Wright County Egg) in the Northern District Court of Iowa, Western Division just as the FDA released its report on Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms...

Will the Egg Man DeCoster join Parnell the Peanut Man in the Big House?

Posted on September 01, 2010
At the PulseNet conference here in Chicago there was a lot of discussion as to what happened to Stewart Parnell, the CEO of the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), who was responsible for 714 ill and nine deaths, which until this DeCoster Egg recall, was one of the larger Salmonella outbreaks in recent memory...

Why does the AMI not want bacteria that can kill you to be considered "adulterants?"

Posted on August 30, 2010
In a letter to USDA Secretary Vilsack on August 18, 2010, J. Patrick Boyle, President and CEO of AMI stated 'outbreaks associated with non-O157:H7 STECs in various foods have been documented, but no reported outbreak in the U.S. has been confirmed to be directly linked to beef products...

AOL's Andrew Schneider weighs in on E. coli O26

Posted on August 30, 2010
I am heading to Chicago to attend two E. coli O157:H7 mediations and the annual CDC PulseNet conference, and just got the chance to read Mr. Schneider's 'USDA Lax on E. Coli Strain Linked to Beef Recall.' I would urge all to do so.

Wright County Egg's First every 483 Inspection Report - It is not too Pretty

Posted on August 30, 2010
As I was boarding a plane to Chicago, my inbox filled up with Wright County Egg's and Hillandale Farm's first every FDA inspection - the so called 483.  Here are the highlights (more like lowlights) of Wright County Egg. Frankly, it was hard to read this one...

Non - E. coli O157:H7 EHEC (O26, O45, O111, O121, O145, and O103) should be "Adulterants"

Posted on August 29, 2010
In light of this weekends recall by Cargill Meat Solutions of approximately 8,500 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O26, and the sickening of three people, it is time for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to deem another six 'enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) Shiga toxin-producing serotypes of Escherichia coli (E...

Doing my part during the Salmonella Egg Mess

Posted on August 29, 2010
I know realistically that raising a few chickens for eggs in my backyard (presently in the guest room shower) will not change what happened over the last few weeks with the US Egg Industry.  And, I know that the eggs are not necessarily safer, but I felt I needed to do something other than sue some corporation for poisoning 1,400 people...

What if I had a food safety magic wand?

Posted on August 28, 2010
The other morning when I was prepping in another studio to talk with another cable channel about yet another food crisis—this time the recall of a half of a billion Salmonella-tainted eggs that had already sickened at least 1,400—I was asked by a young producer, 'Attorney Marler, if you had a magic wand, what would you do to make food safer?' My first thought (to myself) was, 'How the hell do I know, I'm just an ambulance chasing barracuda looking to destroy some poor helpless food manufacturing corporation that just poisoned a bunch of people, cost retail chains hundreds of millions of dollars in recall costs, and damaged its entire sector's image and sales?' But then I thought some more...

Cargill Meat Solutions Sickens Three in Maine and New York with E. coli O26 Tainted Burger

Posted on August 28, 2010
In another late Friday night press release, FSIS announced that Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., a Wyalusing, Pa. establishment, is recalling approximately 8,500 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O26. FSIS became aware of the problem on August 5, 2010 when the agency was notified by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources of an E...

Possible Salmonella Typhi link to Fruiti Pops

Posted on August 28, 2010
Fruiti Pops, Inc. of Santa Fe Springs has recalled its mamey frozen fruit bars because of a possible link to a rare U.S. outbreak of typhoid fever.  The company said Thursday that the fruit bars were distributed in California, Arizona and Texas since May 2009...

Marler Clark to Donate $100,000 to Green Valley High

Posted on August 28, 2010
I was visting my clients, Linda and Richard Rivera, in San Francisco today where Linda is in her 15th month of hospitalization from an E. coli O157:H7 infection.  She has become, in my mind at least, the reason that S. 510 must pass and the President must sign sweeping food safety legislation now...

Judge Approves Settlement of Peanut Corporation Salmonella Cases

Posted on August 26, 2010
According to press reports, late yesterday afternoon a federal judge recommended approval of a $12 million settlement for those sickened or killed in last year's salmonella outbreak tied to a Virginia-based peanut processor.  This includes nearly 50 families represented by Marler Clark...

House to Call Wright Salmonella Egg Man to Testify

Posted on August 26, 2010
Just off the wire from AP: A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on the recall Sep 14. They are inviting Austin "Jack" DeCoster, the head of Wright County Egg, and Orland Bethel, the head of Hillandale Farms. The two farms have recalled more than 550 million eggs after they were linked to as many as 1,300 cases of salmonella poisoning...

Third Salmonella Egg Lawsuit Filed and Request to Entry Wright Egg Sought

Posted on August 26, 2010
It has been a busy morning in the food safety business.  I was supposed to do a live interview via TV on CNN, but missed the 5:25 ferry to Seattle (it is actually at 5:20).  Thankfully, they let me do a phone in.  I am now off to San Francisco to visit with the Rivera family...

Egg Salmonella Enteriditis Outbreak and Smoking Guns

Posted on August 26, 2010
When lawyers talk about 'the smoking gun,' we are usually talking documents, not finding genetically matching Salmonella Enteriditis samples at Wright County Egg and in its chicken feed – but that will work too. So, where are we? The FDA and Wright County Egg Recall number is still 550,000,000, which was announced August 15...

Jeff Farrar, DVM, PhD, MPH (and his team) at FDA find "smoking gun" - Salmonella at Wright County Egg

Posted on August 26, 2010
Rodent feces are the usual source Test results from environmental samples at Wright County Egg - one of two related companies believed to have supplied Salmonella - contaminated eggs now under nationwide recall - showed strains of the bacteria with the same DNA fingerprint seen in clinical isolates...

We could learn something from Jolly Old England - About Salmonella

Posted on August 25, 2010
With 550,000,000 eggs being recalled from 18 states and the number of ill flirting with 2,000, we understandably are not only focusing on the "how did it happen?" but, also "how this could have been prevented?" State Ag and Federal (USDA/FSIS and FDA) authorities seem to be going out of their way to let us know that no one was inspecting the "hen houses" linked to this recall and outbreak - or any other hen houses for that matter...

Food Safety Legislation Needed to Give CDC Tools to Catch Outbreaks Earlier

Posted on August 25, 2010
I spoke to Mina Kimes about her article, 'Egg recall is a golden opportunity to whip food safety into shape,' that appeared in Fortune and CNN this morning about my view of the need to give the CDC more resources to catch foodborne or bioterrorism outbreak sooner...

Sherlock Holmes (a.k.a., Phyllis Entis) cracks the case of the Mystery States

Posted on August 25, 2010
Honestly, I am not sure what I would do (or what the public does) without the solid research by Ms. Entis (efoodalert) on her famous 'Recall Round-ups' and setting out the scope of this Salmonella Enteriditis outbreak. It is good to know where the eggs are poisoned and the people are sick...

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