*** 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. *** Jed, You must have missed the special on TV about the incidence of salmonella discovered in raw chicken in the US. If I recall correctly it was approximately 25% occurrance rate, especially in chicken parts such as breasts. And, the USDA did not even regulate that pathogen since it was assumed present and normal. The program made it clear that these regulators could not force the manufacturers to cease production due to that issue during the time this incident took place. Now, if you cook chicken that is soiled in this way, it is likely that you will get some of the pathogens on fresh vegetables, etc. that are present within your kitchen. And, cooking is not going to clean up the problem in many cases. You also should know that the USDA did not regulate or require testing of the salmonella levels in the products of Mr. Parnell. He performed testing on some of his products to satisfy his contracts with certain customers and not the USDA. At the moment, I am not aware of exactly what regulation on the books he was charged with except perhaps manslaughter, which covers just about any purpose the prosecutor wishes. I suspect that if you were to cut down a tree without care and it landed upon your neighbor causing his death, that would fall within the same category. This would be especially true if you knew the neighbor frequented that spot and you were warned not to make the cut due to the danger to his life. You mentioned over a million sicknesses due to food poisoning by salmonella each year. Should we lock up every food executive associated with those incidents? Do you believe that no one realized that salmonella was being shipped in any of these products? Keep in mind the chicken special(no pun intended) that I referred to above. For disclosure, I know friends of Mr. Parnell since he lived fairly closeby and they all claim he is a decent guy. Why send him to prison when the chicken masters get a free pass? This does not make sense and needs to be changed. He is certainly no more of a murderer than a driver that has had too much to drink and wrecks leading to someone's death. We all know people that have been caught in that trap and most serve little if any time in prison. (28 years???) Dave
