E-mails show company knew of salmonella, shipped anyway

Washington — Even after Peanut Corp. of America learned its products were tainted with salmonella, it kept shipping them to unsuspecting customers, apparently putting profits ahead of public safety, according to documents and testimony presented at a congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday.

Company president Stewart Parnell and Sammy Lightsey, manger of the Blakely plant at the center of one of the biggest food poisoning cases in recent history, refused to answer questions from a House panel, invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to present self-incriminating evidence.

Enlarge this image

Rich McKay/rmckay@ajc.com

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) holds a jar of peanut products and asks Stewart Parnell if he would be willing to unseal the jar and eat any of them.

Enlarge this image

Rich McKay/rmckay@ajc.com

Stewart Parnell, owner and president of the Peanut Corporation of America, is sworn in.

Read the e-mails

• Oct. 6, 2008, e-mail from Stewart Parnell

• Jan. 1, 2009, e-mail from Stewart Parnell

• Read more e-mails

• For all the latest developments on the peanut crisis and the salmonella outbreak, with an updated list of recalled items, plus background on the scare, go to the AJC's special report: ajc.com/peanuts.

They declined to come into the House hearing room while victims told of their dead loved ones killed by salmonella linked to the company’s peanut paste and other products. After refusing to answer any questions from committee members — at one point Parnell and Lightsey were asked if they would even eat any of their own products — they quickly left a House office building, refusing to speak to reporters.

The salmonella outbreak has sickened 600 people and has been linked to nine deaths. More than 1,800 products have been recalled, and manufacturers of peanut-related products have lost millions of dollars.

E-mails and other documents released by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations indicate the company and its executives knew their products contained salmonella and shipped them out anyway to keep the money flowing.

• In one e-mail, Lightsey wrote Parnell and discussed positive salmonella tests on one batch of its products. Parnell gave instructions to nonetheless “turn them loose” after getting a negative test result from another testing company.

• In another e-mail, Parnell expressed concerns over losing “$$$$$” due to delays in shipment.

• In a company-wide e-mail on Jan. 12, Parnell told employees there was no salmonella in its plants — “we have never found any salmonella at all” — and accused the news media of “looking for a news story where there currently isn’t one.”

Even in the heat of the nationwide outbreak, Parnell seemed more worried about his company’s profits than with food safety, according to regulators and congressional investigators.

On Jan. 19, Parnell sent an e-mail to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pleading with the agency to let it continue its business. He wrote that company executives “desperately at least need to turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money.”

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, (R-Gainesville), said the company’s actions not only hurt consumers and revealed problems with food safety, but also decimated the peanut industry that is central to Georgia’s economy.

“Right now peanut farmers are poised to plant this year’s crop,” Deal said. “The uncertainty created by the actions of PCA will cost them millions of dollars.

“We are all outraged,” Deal said.

FDA investigators and the U.S. Justice Department are now looking into criminal charges against the company and its principals.

U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, (R-Marietta), said company officials were free to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify, but that doesn’t protect them from justice if they’re found guilty of wrongdoing.

“If you circumvent the law, or merely take advantage of lax oversight, don’t think you have gamed the system forever,” Gingrey said. “Because justice will catch up with you and you will pay.”

People whose relatives had been sickened or had died also appeared before the subcommittee hearing, chaired by U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, (D-Mich.).

Jeffrey Almer, of Savage, Minn., described how his elderly mother, Shirley, survived lung cancer, a brain tumor and other illnesses. She then died from salmonella poisoning on Dec. 21.

“Cancer couldn’t claim her but peanut butter did,” said Jeffrey Almer, who since has formed a nonprofit food safety advocacy group called Safe Tables Our Priority.

Lou Tousignant of Minneapolis presented a slideshow featuring his late father, Clifford, in photos with his children and grandchildren. A Korean War veteran, Clifford Tousignant earned three Purple Hearts and served his country for 22 years. He died from salmonella poisoning on Jan. 12, shortly after entering a Minnesota nursing home.

Peter Hurley of Wilsonville, Ore., testified how his 3-year-old son, Jacob, began vomiting and having bloody diarrhea in early January. Peter and Brandy Hurley took their son to a pediatrician, who told them to give their son his favorite food to try and get him to eat again.

Jacob’s favorite food: Austin Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter.

“The very food that we later found was the cause of his poisoning,” Hurley said.

In other testimony, representatives of food testing company J. Leek Associates Inc. stated they had found salmonella in Peanut Corp. products in a follow-up test and then alerted plant manger Lightsey about it in early October 2008.

“He paused, said ‘Uh Oh,’ or something to that effect, and then told me he had released the product for shipping,” lab technician Michelle Pronto wrote in response to questions from the congressional committee.

“When I asked if he could get it back, he said it was on a truck headed to Utah and rather than getting it back, he would have the product destroyed somewhere out west,” Pronto wrote.

— Staff writer Craig Schneider contributed to this article.