Washington, DC - Congressman John Barrow (GA-12) today questioned Food and Drug Administration officials on the conditions that allowed the recent salmonella outbreak associated with peanut products manufactured by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).  The occasion was a hearing of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on "The Salmonella Outbreak:  The Continued Failure to Protect the Food Supply."

Tainted products containing peanuts distributed by the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, Georgia, have been discovered all across the country.  The Committee's investigation has shown that the company's highest ranking officials knew of the contamination and knowingly shipped their salmonella-tainted products to unsuspecting consumers.  The tainted products distributed by PCA were sent to elementary schools, nursing homes, hospitals, and even FEMA meal kits handed out in the wake of the Kentucky ice storms.  The salmonella outbreak has caused 600 illnesses and eight deaths.

"I don't know how the big shots at PCA can live with themselves," said Barrow, "and it's up to the prosecutors to decide what happens to them.  But it's our responsibility to realize that so long as there are people like that out there we need to fix our broken regulatory system so that this can't happen again.  Parents shouldn't have to worry that the food they buy off the shelves is going to make their kids sick."

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Contact:  Jane Brodsky, (202) 225-2823

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