Please Jed, you think it was intentional and that the guy did not care if his product would kill people. Then I guess the problem is all solved. No more company will provide peanuts which are a risk to eat. I have not followed the case as detailed as you have. However, if he did the things you say (intentionally poisoned people) then is the very exemption among CEO's. VW CEO did not intentionally wanted to destroy our air. He wanted to sell cars and was informed about an agreement with someone about a moratorium (which he hoped would never expire) or some industry standard to solve this issue. I do not think it is excusable. I just think it goes on and is reality, because the legislation sometimes is impossible to live up to. I think it needs to be simple laws that can be enforced without difficult analysis.
I eat food wherever I am. I eat local food. Yes, I have been sick a couple of times. I was once in a high end restaurant in Redwood city California - so the location is not the issue. There are many factors working together and there is no way you can regulate them away. You cannot even reduce the risks. I have mentioned before (yes, you know) the idea that bigger is better is a factor. In old times people knew where the food came from. It was possible to follow the problem to the source. Making large scale operations makes the path very anonymous. The solution for you and most people is to make limits and legislate the limits. Works on the paper. Is not even close to reality. The large batches also means that when a problem occurs it is too late to stop the problem. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com [email protected] +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 2:57 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> I hope and believe that he did not think that the peanut butter he was >> producing would lead to any deaths. > > > Perhaps he hoped it wouldn't lead to deaths. That would be stupid because > he knew the peanuts were contaminated with salmonella, and anyone who knows > about food, knows that salmonella often causes sickness or death. I guess > he was betting they would not lead to deaths, or if they did kill someone, > he hoped no one could pin the deaths on him. > > There is no doubt of his criminal intent. He sent memos to his employees > saying: "lie about the sales if it saves us money." He failed to submit > products for testing, and he sent the customer falsified certificates of > analysis (fake documents saying the peanuts were inspected). He was warned > repeatedly that the peanuts were contaminated. If that is not criminal > behavior, what would be? > > I have been following this story because it happened here in Georgia, and > it has been the local papers. > > > I suspect that he was of the opinion that this sort of issue has been >> around for many years and did not reflect any significant danger to the >> public. >> > > If so, he is an idiot unaware of what has been common knowledge for over a > century. > > > >> I have read that a very large portion of chicken is infected during >> production as well. > > > If that were true, and if the processing or cooking did not fix the > problem by sterilizing the meat later, thousands of people who get sick or > killed by chicken, and no one would eat it. > > If you go to India or South America you will find lots of food that does > not meet U.S. standards. If you are foolish enough to eat it, you will > probably be violently ill for days or weeks. Once you recover, you will > never, ever, eat that food again. If this contamination were common in > chickens in the U.S., people would soon find out by getting violently ill. > Word would get out, and the entire chicken industry would be wiped out. > > > >> Surely, he assumed that this was business as usual and did not make a >> conscious decision to cause additional loss of life in a callous way. > > > I am sure he did make a conscious decision to risk people's lives! That's > why they sent him to prison for 28 years. > > > >> Does anyone really believe that only peanut butter was dangerous during >> that time frame? How many other foods were equally or more dangerous? > > > The ones that are equally dangerous, such as the recent batch of > cucumbers, have also sickened or killed people. "Every year, Salmonella is > estimated to cause one million illnesses in the United States, with 19,000 > hospitalizations and 380 deaths." > > http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/ > > Obviously, in most cases the food producers do not realize there is > contamination. Very few people deliberately sell products that they know > are likely to sicken or kill consumers. People do not do this because they > do not want to hurt others, and also because it is against the law and you > are fined or put out of business even if you do it by accident. However, in > this case, the evidence collected by the police, and the testimony at > trial, proves beyond doubt that Parnell knew what he was doing, and he > went on doing it for a long time. > >> > > >> Perhaps I am underestimating his level of criminality, but to put a >> businessman in jail for making a mistake in judgement is going a little too >> far. People make similar errors in judgement all the time. >> > > This was not a mistake in judgement, except insofar as he judged he could > get away with murder. > > - Jed > >
