Families share stories of how tainted foods affected their lives
12:40 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Elisabeth and Michael Armstrong's 3-year-old daughter Ashley was one of 200 people sickened by eating spinach contaminated with e.Coli. Her kidneys nearly shut down.
"I can't protect them from spinach. Only you guys can," Elisabeth said.
That plea to lawmakers was echoed by Terry Marshall, whose 85-year-old mother in law was incapacitated after eating tainted peanut butter.
"The very food she thought would improve her health began to ravage her body," Marshall said.
The FDA knew about the problems at the Con-Agra peanut butter plant and they had concerns about e.Coli in spinach long before the outbreaks. The problem, lawmakers say, is that the agency is underfunded and has inadequate enforcement authority.
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D.-Colo.) called it shocking.
"The federal government's hands are tied when it comes to recalls we must rely on the industry to voluntarily recall their product," DeGette said.
Natural Selection Foods which packaged the tainted spinach says it's now testing all greens that arrive at its facility, and Con-Agra says it's spending up to $20 million to modify the plant where the bad peanut butter was produced
"Again we are truly sorry for any harm our peanut butter products caused," Con-Agra spokesman David Colo said.
There were apologies too from Menu foods which manufactured pet food made with bad wheat gluten from China.
There's currently no requirement that many imported ingredients be inspected. Late today the FDA said they would being looking at food and feed products coming into this country.
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