WA OR Cheese E. coli Outbreak Giving Sally Jackson Pause to Shut Down
The gourmet cheese E. coli outbreak in Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Vermont has prompted the owner of Sally Jackson Cheese to tell a news reporter that she plans to shut down the business she started 30 years ago.
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At least eight confirmed illnesses from the same identical strain of E. coli O157:H7 have been associated with Sally Jackson raw milk cheese by the Food and Drug Administration and its state partners. The FDA has warned consumers not to eat any cheese from the north-central Washington farmstead creamery because of possible E. coli contamination. All cheeses were recalled. Inspections by the state and FDA found multiple unsafe conditions, including findings that Sally Jackson wore manure-soiled clothing during cheese production and milked livestock and stirred cheese curds with bare hands that went unwashed. E. coli O157:H7, a potentially deadly human pathogen, harbors in the manure of cows and other livestock.
Sally Jackson told Associated Press Reporter Shannon Dininny that she disputes findings in the report but plans to shut down her business. She said Washington state had ordered her to upgrade her aging, wooden facility a month ago. The state also said she was operating without a milk producer permit and required her to get one. Her customers have included upscale restaurants across the country and some Whole Foods stores, which issued recalls.
Victims of this outbreak who have legal questions about financial recoveries from a company that makes people sick and then shuts down should consult a foodborne illness attorney with experience holding food companies large and small accountable for their actions -- even in instances of bankruptcy. In 2009, national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen was at the forefront of litigationin the peanut butter Salmonella outbreak that killed nine people and sickened more than 700 others. In that 2009 case, millions of dollars were recovered for victims despite the company closing and filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
In the case of Sally Jackson Cheeses of Oroville, Washington, our firm is conducting its own investigation and is in contact with potential victims. This is the second E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in the past four months associated with gourmet raw milk cheese. In the previous outbreak linked to raw milk Bravo Farms gouda cheese sampled and sold at Costco stores in Arizona, Colorado, California, New Mexico and Nevada, Pritzker Olsen represents seven victims and has filed a cheese E. coli lawsuit in Arizona.
To contact an E. coli lawyer at the firm, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete the contact form on the side of this Web page. Besides representing victims of food poisoning, our group of lawyers is actively involved in efforts to make the U.S. food supply safer and they have appeared before conventions of food producers to speak about the liability issues surrounding disease spread from contaminated food.
