How bad has America’s food poisoning epidemic become? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDPC, it kills at least 3,000 of us yearly and afflicts one in six persons, or almost 17 per cent.

That’s 48 million Americans who are sickened by the food they buy, often with nausea, cramps, dehydration, fever and bouts of diarrhea.

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Jim “the Hammer” Adler is fed up with food poisoning. Even if the peanut butter salmonella outbreak doesn’t hit us all, it could kill all of our appetites. The latest queasy quotient comes from news that Peanut Corporation of America — a name which could forever live in infamy — also has had its Plainview plant in West Texas shut down after dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers were found there.

Now, mixing jelly with peanut butter is one thing, but dead rodents is a bit too adventurous for most tastes — and unhealthy enough to prompt a recall of all existing products ever shipped from the Plainview plant. PCA’s now-shuttered Blakely, Ga. plant already has been branded with that distinction.

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The latest atrocities reported from the front lines of America’s salmonella food poisoning battle indicate that the responsible company, Peanut Corporation of America, shipped products to consumers even prior to learning results of lab tests which would reveal salmonella.

Peanut Corp. reportedly found salmonella in its own testing, then “lab shopped” to try to find a lab which would provide a favorable report. Meanwhile, it shipped tainted peanut products to consumers in various states. Many persons have been stricken with salmonella in Minnesota, California, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts and Virginia. Still more cases have arisen in Florida, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas, Idaho and New Hampshire.

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If the economy gets any worse, we’ll all be eating peanuts. They’re cheap and nutritious. But these days, they can be deadly.

Peanuts are under assault by manufacturers who have no respect for America’s favorite comfort food or the well being of their fellow Americans. When the FBI starts raiding peanut plants for salmonella food poisoning you know the situation is out of control at a time when peanut products need more protection than ever given the state of the economy.

In some respects, Africa is better off than we are when it comes to peanuts. What does Africa have to do with it? Read on. But first, a reprise of American values.

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To eat, or not to eat? That’s hardly the question, since we must ingest and imbibe to survive. But with America rocked by another salmonella food poisoning outbreak, questions do arise. One is, “How bad is it?” Another is, “What do we do now?”

CBS News helped answer the first with a report today from the now-closed Blakely, Ga. plant of Peanut Corporation of America, believed to be the source of a salmonella outbreak that’s killed eight people so far and sickened hundreds — if not thousands — of others. This follows another devastating salmonella food poisoning onslaught last fall which struck down many Americans via a Mexican produce supplier.

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Just when you thought negligence in peanut butter salmonella food poisoning couldn’t get worse, it has. The New York Times reports that Food and Drug Administration officials inspecting Peanut Corporation of America’s plant in southwest Georgia learned that plant leaders knew of salmonella contamination, failed to negate it and issued the tainted food anyway.

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There’s ooze in the news, as the salmonella peanut butter bug spreads. It seems more products are involved than first were suspected, though no jars of grocery-store peanut butter are in the mix.

So if you buy by the jar for your PB&J (that’s peanut butter and jelly to you non-believers in the ultimate comfort food), you’re safe. But if you buy certain brands of crackers, cookies or ice cream with peanut butter, you may be in for a track meet between your bedroom and the bathroom.

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At least the tomato industry won’t take an unfair hit this time — but Americans are still at risk, due to another outbreak of salmonella food poisoning.

Unlike last fall’s outbreak which afflicted hundreds if not thousands of Americans (and finally was tracked to Mexican-grown Serrano peppers), this one has been traced quickly: to peanut butter that’s been sold in five-pound tubs to institutions such as universities, hospitals, nursing homes and restaurants.

In fact, King Nut Companies of Ohio already has issued a recall and an apology.

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You like tomato and I like serrano. Tomato. Serrano.  Tomato. Serrano. Let’s call the whole thing off!

Those lyrics might not have passed muster with George and Ira Gershwin, but they certainly apply today, now that the Food and Drug Administration has pinpointed its search for the salmonella Saintpaul outbreak to two farms in Mexico — and to serrano peppers, not tomatoes, as originally believed.

Tomatoes still aren’t entirely off the hook in this investigatory tug-of-war, the FDA says, since the same farms in which salmonella was found in the irrigation supply and in peppers also could have exposed tomatoes to the same contaminated water. Jalapeno peppers also are suspect. But at least after more than three months of futile searching and more than 1,300 documented cases of Americans suffering disastrous digestive disorders, the feds seem to be onto something. (more…)

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When it comes to the disastrous digestive disorders caused by salmonella Saintpaul – and their mysterious origin — perhaps we should have known from the start that tomatoes might not be the bad apples.
Tomatoes, after all, are soft and juicy and seem relatively harmless, even if they have been used historically – especially as rotten tomatoes – to hurl at performers whose acts bombed.
But jalapenos? Those veggies can vex even in the best of circumstances, and certainly not everyone should eat them. Tasty as jalapenos can be, not even all bona fide, card-carrying, iron-stomached Texans raised on Tex-Mex food are immune from their indigestive powers. (more…)

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