August 31, 2001
		Sara Lee Knowingly Sold Listeria-Tainted Meat Managers at a Sara Lee Corp. plant in Michigan knew months before people started dying in 1998 that they were shipping tainted hot dogs and deli meats, according to statements given by workers and a meat inspector to federal criminal investigators. A report obtained by the Detroit Free Press cites one employee who know with "virtual certainty" that meats produced and sold by the Bil Mar plant were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes and that management had "a similar level of awareness." A federal meat inspector also told investigators that Bil Mar managers were aware that levels of listeria had increased for many months before the nationwide outbreak that killed 15, caused six miscarriages and sickened 101 people. The inspector said that managers intentionally "skirted the law" and shipped out the meat products without testing them. Federal prosecutors in Grand Rapids, however, say that the government "uncovered no evidence that Sara Lee intentionally distributed the adulterated meat product." U.S. Attorney Phillip Green allowed Sara Lee to plead guilty in June to a single federal misdemeanor charge. The company agreed to pay a $200,000 fine and make a $3 million grant to Michigan Sate University for food safety research. "I stand by our decision," Green said. "And to the extent that you have information that you believe is contradictory, I'm happy to examine it." Consumer advocates, however, were not easily mollified. "The whole thing is scandalous, absolutely scandalous," said Nancy Donley, president of the Chicago-based Safe Tables Our Priority. "I'm horrified." Carol Tucker Foreman , director of food policy for the Consumer Federation of America, called on Congress to investigate. "If they set out to defraud the system, they succeeded," said Foreman. "It's shocking and appalling, and furthermore, it encourages other companies to be criminally lax." The investigators' report suggests the Bil Mar plant was a place where safety was a low priority, well after production and profits. Workers also claimed in the report that management had to know there was a problem with listeria tainting meats that were being shipped. In April 1998, three months before the outbreak, investigators found documents that showed the plant issued a credit for 218 cases of turkey breast shipped to a California business after the meat tested positive for listeriosis. The USDA inspector told a Bil Mar worker at the time that the plant was running a risk of getting in trouble if it shipped contaminated foods, and the worker replied: "They would never know it was our product since [listeria] has about a two-week incubation period," the report said. The inspector said a worker at the plant said it was "OK for the plant to sell product they thought had listeria in it as long as they didn't know for sure." Another former Bil Mar employee told investigators that plant lab technicians had only been instructed by management to test for conditions that are favorable for the growth of listeria, but ot for the actual presence of Listeria monocytogenes. Workers were also instructed to keep laboratory test results in a file that was withheld from the USDA. Yet another former Bil Mar employee claimed to have become aware of the listeria problem in late spring or early summer of 1998, and told investigators that "responsible members of management at Bil Mar had knowledge of a microbial problem in the plant but were not trying to cover up this fact. It is my personal belief that due to what has happened, members of the Bil Mar management were criminally negligent in that they allowed product to leave the plant that could have a bacteriological problem." A Bil Mar worker who kept personal diaries related to working at the plant said he knew with "virtual certainty" that the products produced and sold by Bil Mar were contaminated with listeria and believed that "Bil Mar management had a similar level of awareness."