Del Monte Cantaloupe Salmonella Lawsuit
The Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division is without a doubt one of the leading public health authorities in the United States. When it comes to investigating contamination of our food supply and protecting citizens from E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter, Botulism and other dangerous human pathogens that sicken one in six Americans every year, the state of Oregon is in elite company.
In a May 2010 feature story, the Oregonian newspaper called William Keene the state's “top foodborne illness detective” and credited him with saving lives for his work on outbreaks. “He's one of the food safety heroes in the U.S.,” Michael Osterholm, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in the Oregonian story.
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Now Del Monte Fresh Produce, N.A., Inc.. has filed a notice to sue the Oregon public health unit and Keene himself. The company said in a press release that its "Notice to Sue alerts the Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division of its conduct and misleading allegations regarding Del Monte Fresh's imported cantaloupes as the source of a Salmonella outbreak earlier this year despite the lack of sufficient factual basis.''Oregon Public Health has never been sued before or faced the threat of litigation in the dozens of food-borne illness outbreaks it investigates every year. The agency is not commenting on the Del Monte action, but Tony Green, spokesman for the Oregon Justice Department, told the Oregonian's Lynne Terry that the state takes its role of protecting public health seriously.“Public health’s experts work on dozens of suspected food-borne illness cases every year as a way to prevent people from getting sick,” Green said in a statement. “Investigators often help identify the source of an outbreak helping companies prevent further contamination. Oregon has one of the leading food-borne illness programs in the country.”
