Unsanitary Conditions at Wright County Egg Should Not Go over Easy
by Fred Pritzker
I represent victims of food poisoning. I represent them in cases involving Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, Shigella and other nasty pathogens.
The cases that bother me most are those in which food processors put profit over safety and needlessly endanger the health and safety of American consumers. I know these cases first hand. My firm represented the families of more people killed in the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) Salmonella outbreak than any other law firm in the United States.
You remember PCA. The company sold peanut products to food producers that used the peanut paste to make thousands of snack products. The company was shut down and forced into bankruptcy after hundreds of people were sickened and several died as a result of Salmonella poisoning from the company’s peanuts.
As part of our thorough investigation, I traveled to the Blakely, Georgia PCA plant implicated in the outbreak and personally inspected it. What I found was appalling: filthy equipment, vermin and gaps in walls and the ceiling that allowed in any number of rodents, insects and other disease carrying animals. My observations mirrored those made by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the report of which may be viewed at http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/ORA/ORAElectronicReadingRoom/UCM109843.pdf.
There is now another Salmonella outbreak. It involves half a billion eggs from two large producers in Iowa, Quality Egg LLC (Wright County Egg), Galt, IA and Hillandale Farms, New Hampton, IA. Shockingly, these plants were never inspected by the FDA until after this recent outbreak.
It’s a pity they were not previously inspected. Here are some of the observations made by federal inspectors at Wright County Egg during their August inspections during the outbreak:
- Live frogs living in egg laying house
- Wild birds flying through egg laying houses
- Pigeons roosting in air vents
- Gaps and holes in building foundations large enough to admit vermin
- Evidence of rodent burrows located along baseboards
- “Dark liquid which appeared to be manure was observed seeping through the concrete foundation to the outside of the laying houses…”
- Employees not wearing or changing protective clothing when moving between laying houses
- Laying house entrance doors “blocked with excessive amounts of manure in the manure pits
- Live mice observed inside the egg laying houses
The complete report may be viewed at: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/ORA/ORAElectronicReadingRoom/UCM224399.pdf
These disgusting findings come on the heels of other reports about the practices of Wright County Egg and its operator. According to a recent article in the New York Times: “The company behind the recall, Wright County Egg, of Galt, Iowa, is owned by Jack DeCoster, who has had run-ins with regulators over poor or unsafe working conditions, environmental violations, the harassment of workers and the hiring of illegal immigrants.”
We just sued Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms on behalf of one of the recent Salmonella outbreak victims. Here is the link to those court papers. Contact me for more information about the egg lawsuit.
In the near future, I will ask the court for permission to personally inspect the plants of these two operators. I need to see firsthand the conditions under which the recalled eggs were produced and find out why this massive recall occurred. My clients deserve nothing less.
