Let the Games Begin

There is breaking news on this summer’s salmonella outbreak. At first the Centers for Disease Control thought the bacteria was coming in on tomatoes, so stores and restaurants pulled tomatoes from the shelf. Then after ruining this year’s tomato crop for farmers, the CDC announced that no, it wasn’t tomatoes, it was actually Serrano peppers from Mexico that were to blame.

Me, I kept eating salsa. Over 1300 people came down with salmonella poisoning during this outbreak. But I would guesstimate that over 130 million people ate some combination of tomatoes and/or peppers during the time period between the start of the outbreak and the location of the source of contamination. So the odds of getting salmonella were about the same as the risk of being stung to death by killer bees, and only a little riskier than being ripped to pieces by a pack of dogs. Most of us don’t build our lives around avoiding bee stings and dog bites.

I don’t want to make light of salmonella. One of my coworkers got it a couple of years ago, and he said he remained curled around the toilet for three days, because there was no point in going anywhere else. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. About one in five of the people who came down with the stpaul strain involved with this outbreak were hospitalized.

Well, one of the hospitalized people has hired an attorney. And who has the attorney sued? Not the CDC, for missing the source during the initial investigation. Not the farmer, who was the actual source of contaminated produce (how much money could a Mexican pepper farmer have, anyway?). No, no, the attorney has sued Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart sold this guy the peppers that made him sick.

This attorney actually has a practice dedicated to suing companies based on food borne illnesses. According to the press release, his position is that Wal-Mart should have known that the peppers had salmonella and prevented them from being sold. I guess that Wal-Mart is supposed to check every box of produce from every source for every possible contaminant and pathogen.

I fell for the guy who got sick, but suing the supermarket is not the answer. If this suit is successful, what’s next? Suing the supermarket for selling honey and dog food?