Players in Peanut Butter Scandal Ineptly Pass the Buck

Dr. Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, seemed to be squirming during the Senate Ag Committee's hearing this morning. The subject, of course, was how salmonella wound up in our nation's peanut butter.

It's become common knowledge that the FDA is overworked, underfunded, and focused more on drug regulation than food safety -- plus it lacks the authority to order recalls or even demand company safety records.

But Sundlof insisted on defending the agency, often in contradictory ways. We knew this was going on; we were on top of it; therefore, it wasn't our fault. Huh?

Sundlof acknowledged that the FDA had received reports from Georgia inspectors about problems at the Peanut Corporation of America's plant in Blakely, where the contamination started, but "the state was working with the company... to resolve ongoing issues," he said.

And when Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) brought up recent AP reports of another PCA plant in Texas that apparently went four years without inspections, Sundlof said, "They were in our database and we knew about this company." Does he really think "We knew about this but didn't do anything" makes the agency look better?

Meanwhile, Peanut Corporation of America -- now under criminal investigation -- is defending itself by insisting that the Georgia plant was regularly inspected and got "superior ratings." But where did it get these superior ratings? From private companies hired by PCA. And, according to the president of one of these companies, their evaluations relied on microbial test data provided by PCA. So basically, PCA paid third parties to read PCA's own cherry-picked data and then assure buyers like Kellogg that, according to that third party's supposedly independent analysis, PCA had a clean bill of health. Brilliant.

One of those inspectors, AIB International, also tried to defend itself. The company's president basically said it's not AIB's fault that they happened to drop by on days when the roof wasn't leaking and the rats and cockroaches were asleep or hiding out of sight. Seriously.

He said the company would not have received a superior rating if his auditors had seen the filth the federal government described.

"It would mean that we didn't see it on the day we were there," he said of the rating. "What goes on the rest of the time, we don't know."

"I never ate the peanut butter," a former cook said, "and I wouldn't allow my kids to eat it."