David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> 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
