No matter how bad a food poisoning case, businesses will find a way to avoid prosecution.
It does not even matter that people died, or that hundreds got sick, for eating a product that should have never seen the supermarket shelves: the courts are willing to give a break to food producers who should be banned forever from offering food to people.
It matters little that people have died. The company is too small to offer any possible remuneration for their deaths. They Jensens also could, and probably will, opt for bankruptcy protection.
In the end, the plea deal offered Jensen Farms is a slap on the fact of the consumer. It is a telling tale, which should mobilize people to request better oversight and control of the food chain.
But as Jensen Farms gets ready to give the great slip-ho, the US government has allowed legislation to be passed that will make inspection of certain staples even harder to monitor.
The Jensen farm outbreak was one of the worse in US history. In most countries, people who through their negligence cause the death of the consumers, usually end up in jail. But in the US, the enormous protection offered businesses small and large, is allowing food growers and producers to be as bold, and careless, as they wish.
What this plea deal does, is send a message to all, that human lives taken because of wanton negligence and unsavory labor practices matter very little. Those lives, are as some say, par for the course, in a large country addicted to mass produced foods.
The plea deal presented by Jensen Farms has a maximum of one year in jail and 250,000 dollar fine, a pittance, compared to the 33 deaths that occurred from the infection caused by their contaminated cantaloupes. In the end, the Jensens will probably see not the maximum described above, but a fraction of that penalty applied to their case.
The case of the LIsteria Cantaloupes from the Jensen Farms was an egregious example of carelessness and neglect.
The Jensen brothers packed and processed their cantaloupes in filthy packaging and conveyor equipment. In fact, the Jensen brothers even wantonly disregarded the procedure of dousing the skin of the cantaloupes with a chlorine solution for disinfection as it passed the conveyor belt, which is the proper and lawful packing procedure.
After an earlier inspection revealed that the Jensen brothers were improperly processing the fruit, the state mandated they change apparatus. The Jensens then bought a used potato conveyor belt, without cleaning it, and again failed to use the chloring solution needed in the process.
This is a case that should not engender the pity or forgiveness of any court. And yet, and again, the small business, like the large, is offered a viable route of escape from their vital responsibilities to the American public.
Op-Ed
Partial Source : FSN/Denver Channel/ 10.17.13
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