Minnesota Alfalfa Sprouts – Salmonella Lawyer
State and federal health officials have linked a multistate Salmonella outbreak to eating raw alfalfa sprouts.
In response to this outbreak, FDA and CDC are recommending that consumers not eat raw alfalfa sprouts, including sprout blends containing alfalfa sprouts, until further notice.
Given the far-reaching nature of the outbreak, CDC suspects that certain alfalfa seeds are contaminated with Salmonella Saintpaul.
Our Minnesota law firm is representing persons sickened by alfalfa sprouts in Minnesota and other states. If you or a loved one has been sickened, please contact our law firm. Attorney Fred Pritzker has recently appeared on CBS News and Fox News discussing Salmonella outbreaks and litigation.
According to the CDC:
Since mid-March, 35 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Saintpaul have been reported from 7 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Michigan (17), Minnesota (4), Ohio (3), Pennsylvania (6), South Dakota (2), Utah (1), and West Virginia (2). Cases are still being reported, and possible cases are in various stages of laboratory testing, so illnesses may be reported from other states.
Some of the people sickened ate alfalfa sprouts at a restaurant. These people may have a claim against the restaurant in addition to the grower, processor, distributor and others.
If you have been diagnosed with Salmonella, please contact a Salmonella lawyer at our law firm:
- 612-338-0202
- 1-888-377-8900 (toll free)
- Submit our free consultation form
Food Poisoning Lawyer: The Shame of Underinsurance
National food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker of PritzkerOlsen, P.A., has recovered millions of dollars for victims of food poisoning. He is involved in nearly every major outbreak of foodborne illness in the United States and has been utilized as an expert on food safety by The New York Times, CBS News, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Lawyers USA, The Associated Press and Law & Politics. Here he writes an opinion column on the travesty of underinsurance at restuarants where food poisoning can take its toll on hundreds of victims in short time periods.
A Modest Proposal: Enough Insurance to Compensate Foodborne Illness Survivors
By FRED PRITZKER
Late last summer there was a devastating outbreak of E. coli O111 traced back to the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. 341 people were sickened and one person died. While the source of the outbreak – the restaurant – was quickly identified, the disease-causing organism was not isolated on the restaurant premises or in the food and water served there. Thus, the final outbreak report (just released by the Oklahoma State Department of Health) concluded:
In the absence of isolating the outbreak organism from any environmental specimen, including restaurant surfaces, food, well water and animal feces, or from a restaurant employee who reported diarrheal illness, the original vehicle of contamination could not be determined. The exact mode of spread within the restaurant was not established, however, the epidemic curve and exposure analyses suggests there was ongoing foodborne transmission of E. coli O111:NM to Country Cottage restaurant patrons between August 15 and August 24, 2008.
Not surprisingly, this outbreak created some political fallout in the Sooner state. The state’s attorney general was quoted as saying “they [OSDH] botched the investigation and are very reluctant to admit they botched the investigation.” He said his own office determined the likely cause of the outbreak was poultry litter that contaminated the restaurant’s well water. Local politicians and, of course, the poultry industry vigorously dispute the attorney general’s accusations.
What is not in dispute, however, is the fact that E. coli O111 is a virulent pathogen that causes severe illness and death. Also not in dispute is the fact that most of the restaurant patrons will never be fully compensated for the losses they suffered. That’s because although the restaurant had insurance, the amount of the coverage is woefully insufficient to cover the harms and losses sustained by the victims. Do the math: even assuming a liability policy of $1,000,000, the average recovery for an outbreak victim would be under $3,000.
Within a few months of this massive outbreak, the restaurant reopened its doors and presumably is well on the way to building back up its business. That’s probably a good thing, assuming the restaurant owners utilize this tragedy to review and revamp the restaurant’s food safety and sanitation practices.
Of course, the outbreak victims, especially the person who died, don’t have that luxury. Many of them will never recover and even those who do face financial and physical hardship for years to come.
So the restaurant re-opens, the disease spreading vector is never identified, nobody is held accountable and politicians try to advance their careers. What about the victims?
The Locust Grove tragedy illustrates a number of problems – some insoluble, but some fairly easy to remedy. For example, let’s start requiring food purveyors to carry enough insurance to fairly compensate their customers when the food they sell is adulterated with deadly pathogens. This should not be hard or prohibitively expensive.
If the coverage is not available at a fair price in the private sector, let the government underwrite risk pools and excess coverage. There are a plenty of existing programs to model on including flood insurance, crop insurance, vaccine compensation programs, etc.
Insurance is risk spreading when the risk of harm cannot be eliminated. So why should foodborne illness survivors have to go it alone, especially when they are absolutely blameless for the damage they suffer. If we write off toxic assets, can’t we at least underwrite insurance for victims of toxic food?
Food Retailers Must Heed Recalls
Food product recalls related to the peanut butter Salmonella outbreak are still trickling in. So far, more than 3,863 food products containing potentially contaminated peanut ingredients made last year by Virginia-based Peanut Corporation of America have been recalled by food manufacturers across the country.
But what good is a recall if retailers don’t take the responsibility to pull the items from store shelves? National food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker has written about the growing and unresolved problem in a hard-hitting editorial.
By FRED PRITZKER
The whole point of a food recall is to prevent additional foodborne illness after producers and their adulterated products are identified. That’s why it’s so important for food companies, food distributors, food retailers and federal, state and local authorities to promptly and effectively remove from the marketplace any food known or reasonably certain to cause illness or death.
That’s also why there should be a special place in hell for those companies that knew or should have known a food product was dangerous but continued to sell it anyway.
The ongoing Salmonella outbreak involving Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) is a case in point. It appears from the company’s emails that its officers and employees knowingly shipped adulterated product. If so, the company’s liquidation and the criminal investigation of its principals are both necessary and fair.
But what about the downstream retailers of food products containing adulterated PCA ingredients? Aren’t they just as culpable if they fail to remove contaminated product from their shelves after they knew or should have known of the recall?
This is not an idle musing. Long after the PCA recall was announced and long after the list of adulterated products was known and accessible on a variety of web sites, retailers big and tiny continued to sell these poisonous snacks. I know because I looked.
Many of the recalled products were snack foods with long shelf lives and wide distribution. Many of the retailers who sell them are small outlets with small product stocks and unsophisticated (if any) recall procedures. For many such retailers, there is little economic justification for removing dangerous products and even less risk of public approbation for failing to do so – little consolation for the victims who continue to get sick long after the products should have been removed.
Perversely, the legal system in many states promotes such behavior. So called “pass through statutes” are intended to insulate downstream retailers from lawsuit liability if the upstream producer or manufacturer of the dangerous product is identifiable and solvent. In such cases, the retailer is automatically dismissed from litigation and bears no financial responsibility (dismissals can be avoided if the downstream retailer modified the product or otherwise actively participated in making the product defective).
So what should be done? From the standpoint of efficacy and efficiency, better product traceback and notification systems have to be designed and implemented. However, I have no illusions that any such improvements are really going to rid long lived snacks from the shelves of retailers disinclined to care all that much. What will incentivize such retailers is the threat of criminal sanctions and financial responsibility.
First, create a tight and focused criminal law that makes it a crime to sell a food product that a retailer knows or should know has been recalled. We do it for sales of liquor and cigarettes to minors; there is no reason not to do it for dangerous food products. If criminalizing the behavior is too extreme, create economic penalties by allowing consumers to prove such illegal sales and awarding them attorney fees if they’re successful. Again, there is precedent for such measures in consumer protection statutes on the books in virtually every state.
To promote food safety, everyone up and down the stream of commerce has to act and bear responsibility and should be held accountable for failing to do so.
January Traffic Deaths Include 6 Not Wearing Belts
Of the seven people killed in Minnesota traffic accidents in January, six were not wearing seat belts.
The statistics were released by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety with a reminder to motorists to buckle up. In addition, the Department of Public Safety is teaming up with the American Automobile Association in offering Minnesota teens the chance to win $2,000 in prize money in a contest to see who can make the best TV spot urging young people to wear their seat belts.
According to the traffic statistics from January, four of those killed in accidents during the month were ejected from their vehicle. Three of the seven who died were 19 years old.
Each year in Minnesota, unbelted motorists account for around 200 traffic deaths, representing 55 percent of all motorist deaths. During 2005-2007, there were 614 unbelted vehicle occupant deaths and 1,298 serious injuries.
Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers and seat belt non-use is a major factor cited in teen traffic deaths, according to Public Safety records.
To contact a Minnesota car accident lawyer at PritzkerOlsen, please call 612-338-0202, call 1-888-377-8900 (toll-free) or submit our free consultation form.
ACTIQ “Fentanyl Lollipop” Allegedly Associated with Death
Lawsuits have alleged an association between ACTIQ, a “fentanyl lollipop” and patient deaths.
Wrongful death lawsuits against Dr. Stephen Schneider allegedly involve ACTIQ and fentanyl overdose, and Cephalon Inc., the manufacturer of ACTIQ, has been named as a defendant:
In December 2008, the family of Robin Geist-Wick – a 45-year-old patient who died of fentanyl intoxication on May 15, 2007 – added Cephalon as a defendant in its wrongful-death lawsuit against Schneider and another doctor from his clinic, Lawrence Simons, who also had treated Geist-Wick.1
According to the complaint, Dr. Schneider had prescribed ACTIQ for Ms. Geist-Wick’s migraine headaches. Other lawsuits are also pending.
According to attorney Fred Pritzker, “Fentanyl, the active ingredient in ACTIQ, is a strong and dangerous drug that requires the utmost caution by both doctors and patients. We see many cases in which people die as a result of not being properly screened, trained, and instructed regarding use and danger of this drug and the various systems used to deliver it to the human body.” Fentanyl is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine.
ACTIQ is approved by the FDA for use for pain management on cancer patients, who experience excruciating pain. The ACTIQ label reads as follows:
ACTIQ is indicated only for the management of breakthrough cancer pain in patients with malignancies who are already receiving and who are tolerant to opioid therapy for their underlying persistent cancer pain. . . .
ACTIQ is intended to be used only in the care of cancer patients and only by oncologists and pain specialists who are knowledgeable of and skilled in the use of Schedule II opioids to treat cancer pain.
Because life-threatening hypoventilation could occur at any dose in patients not taking chronic opiates, ACTIQ is contraindicated in the management of acute or postoperative pain. This product must not be used in opioid non-tolerant patients.2
Cephalon recently plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor and agreed to pay millions in a federal case filed in Philadelphia. The case centered around Cephalon’s alleged marketing of ACTIQ for “off-label” uses, including migraine headaches. This marketing effort allegedly increased the sales of the drug dramatically.
To contact our law firm about an ACTIQ lawsuit against Cephalon and others, please call 1-888-377-8900 (toll-free) or submit our free case consultation form.
Important related FDA information: In January, the FDA finalized new guidelines that allow pharmaceutical companies to market off-label uses for drugs. We are concerned that these new guidelines will endanger the lives of countless patients. If you would like federal legislation to prevent this type of marketing, please contact your federal legislators. It is vitally important for all of us to care about the safety of our health care system. Given the FDA’s track record, we cannot rely on the FDA to protect the public.
References:
1. Roxana Hegeman, Drugmaker Cephalon linked to indicted Kan. Doctor, Forbes, February 3, 2009.
2. http://www.actiq.com/
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