Less than two months after losing his mother to Salmonella poisoning, Minnesotan Jeffrey Almer captivated a congressional subcommittee in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday with harsh criticisms of America’s food safety regulation and of the company that sickened his mother with contaminated peanut butter.
Shirley Almer, 72, of Perham, had beaten lung and brain cancer in 2007 and 2008. She was recovering nicely from a urinary tract infection and even talked about getting a new puppy. But then, suddenly, she was stricken with a deadly pathogen that came from a five-gallon tub of peanut butter at the assisted living center where she was staying.
“Cancer couldn’t claim her, but peanut butter did,” Jeffrey Almer told the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington, D.C. His live testimony was a highlight at the packed hearing and the subcommittee posted a complete transcript of his speech.
He said he and his siblings were expecting to get their mother home for Christmas, but instead said tearful goodbyes to her on December 21 as she took her last breaths in a hospital in Brainerd, Minnesota.
Led by Jeffrey Almer, the heirs of Shirley Almer became clients of national food safety law firm PritzkerOlsen Attorneys. Firm President Fred Pritzker has filed a Salmonella wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the Almer family against Peanut Corporation of America, the Virginia company that federal authorities blame for the Salmonella outbreak.
PritzkerOlsen also represents the family of Doris Flatgard, 87, who also died in Brainerd with a Salmonella infection that matched the outbreak strain. Across the country, eight deaths and 600 illnesses have been associated with peanut butter and peanut paste manufactured by PCA at a now-closed plant in Blakely, Georgia.
Of PCA, Almer testified: “Their behavior is criminal in my opinion. I want to see jail time and I want to see them served nothing but the putrid sludge they’ve been troweling out.”
“Our family feels cheated,” Almer testified. “My mom should be with us today.”
Jeffrey Almer told the subcommittee that his mother was a proud American businesswoman who had a lot of “Sisu,” which is what Finnish people call a person with spunk, fortitude and determination.
Just after New Year’s Day, the Minnesota Department of Health informed the family that Shirley Almer had a positive test for Salmonella that matched the outbreak strain.
“She had unknowingly consumed Salmonella-laced peanut butter while in her immune compromised state of health,” Jeffrey Almer told the subcommittee.
On the same day that PCA Chief Executive Stewart Parnell refused to answer the subcommittee’s questions, Jeffrey Almer testified that PCA “appears to be more concerned with squeezing every dollar possible at the expense of sanitary conditions and sound food manufacturing processes.”
He continued: “PCA now has the blood of eight victims on their hands, along with the shattered health of a known 600 others” who were sickened by the outbreak stain of Salmonella. He said PCA’s legacy “is now that of a company that did what it could get away with until their shoddy practices led to one of the nation’s largest recalls.”
Mr. Almer closed his testimony by railing against America’s underfunded food regulatory safety net.
“Shirley Almer loved this country but was terribly let down by a broken and ineffective food safety system. She was let down in the worst possible way by the very government whose responsibility it is to protect its citizens,” he said. “We need strong laws, regulations and effective enforcement enacted to protect our families.”
