Salmonella Outbreak Plant Shipped Dubious Product Before: U.S. Health Officials

Jan. 28 -- TUESDAY, Jan. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The Georgia facility that produced the peanut butter and peanut paste involved in the current salmonella outbreak had distributed questionable peanut butter product in the past, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.

In 2007 and 2008, Peanut Corp. of America, which owns the now-closed Blakely, Ga., plant, shipped peanut butter that it knew had been contaminated with salmonella, according to key officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The FDA team identified 12 instances where the firm, as part of its own internal testing program, identified some type of salmonella and released a product after it was retested," Michael Rogers, director of FDA's division of field investigations in the Office of Regional Operations, said during a late afternoon teleconference.

While there were no reports of illness as a result of that distribution, "salmonella shouldn't be there," Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said during the teleconference. "It had an adverse effect on the quality of the product, making it adulterated."

"This was clearly a violation of 'good manufacturing practice standards.' This is a practice that the firm should not have engaged in," Sundlof added. "That is a violation of law."

The American Peanut Council reacted strongly to the FDA disclosures late Tuesday.

"The findings of the FDA report can only be seen as a clear and unconscionable action of one irresponsible manufacturer, which stands alone in an industry that strives to follow the most stringent food safety standards," Patrick Archer, president of the group, said in a prepared statement. "The American peanut industry's top priority is the health and safety of consumers. ... This apparent failure to follow food safety regulations must be condemned in the strongest possible terms."

The FDA officials also said at the teleconference that four strains of salmonella have now been linked to the Georgia plant in the current outbreak.