Salinas-based produce supplier Taylor Fresh Foods is facing lawsuits from nine victims of a November E. coli outbreak that was not disclosed to the public.
The outbreak — which killed one person and sickened at least 88 more — was linked to romaine lettuce and spanned at least 15 states, including Missouri and Indiana.
Federal investigators traced the cases back to a single grower, but the Food and the Drug Administration didn’t disclose the name.
The details of the investigation came to light only after several affected parties, including the parents of a 10-year-old victim earlier this month, filed lawsuits alleging Taylor Fresh Foods and Taylor Farms California — referred to as “Taylor Farms” in court documents — originated the “defective and unreasonably dangerous” food products that caused the E. coli outbreak.
Taylor Farms in a Thursday statement to The Times denied that it was the source of the E. coli outbreak and said it is “considering all legal action to defend itself.”
“We perform extensive raw and finished product testing on all our product and there was no evidence of contamination,” the supplier said, adding that its produce is processed using USDA-verified wash systems.
In a federal lawsuit against Taylor Fresh Foods and Taylor Farms California filed last week, Indiana residents Amber and Chris George alleged that their then 9-year-old son Colton George became severely ill and was hospitalized after eating romaine lettuce allegedly supplied by the California producer.
He was later diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening kidney condition, from an E. coli strain that was confirmed by genetic testing to match other cases in the outbreak.
The boy’s condition forced him to undergo dialysis for two weeks — including on his 10th birthday, the complaint said.
The Georges demanded that Taylor Farms pay their son’s medical bills among other damages, including for “loss of enjoyment of life” and “emotional distress.”
Taylor Farms’ products were previously linked to a separate E. coli outbreak in October. The supplier voluntarily recalled the onion products at fault, and the FDA cautioned the public about the contaminated yellow onions, which were being served on McDonald’s hamburgers.
This time, the FDA said “there were no public communications related to this outbreak” because the contaminated lettuce was no longer being sold when its distributor was identified, according to an internal report obtained by NBC.
The FDA also said in a statement to NBC that it names firms only “when there is enough evidence linking an outbreak to a firm and there is actionable advice for consumers, as long as naming the firm is not legally prohibited.”
“By the time investigators had confirmed the likely source, the outbreak had already ended and there was no actionable advice for consumers,” the agency said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in a letter the previous month that the outbreak was over.
Representatives for the FDA and CDC did not respond to requests for comment.
Bill Marler, the attorney representing the nine victims suing Taylor Farms, said he uncovered extensive evidence pointing to the supplier as the source of the outbreak. Marler said he obtained invoices from a St. Louis caterer listing Taylor Farms as its seller.
“The whole thing could be very much cleared up if the FDA did what they normally do, which is name the entity when they have it nailed down to an entity, which they do,” Marler said.
Marler said he was particularly disturbed by the FDA’s decision not to publicize this outbreak or its source because the specific strain of E. coli that caused it — E. coli O157:H7 — has been linked to several prior outbreaks.
“That tells you that there’s some sort of systemic problem in the growing environment,” the attorney said.
“If you kind of ignore it and say, ‘Oh well, the outbreak is over, we don’t have to say anything,’” he said, “what incentive is there for companies to stop growing there?”
Jerold Mande, an adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a former senior advisor to the FDA commissioner, said that even if a contaminated product is out of circulation by the time its source is identified, consumers still have a right to know the contamination occurred.
“A company’s record in the past is indicative of what people might expect in the future as well, and so consumers should have that information,” Mande said, adding that what they do with that information is up to them.
Mande said that the FDA has not historically excelled at transparency, and he is concerned that recent cuts to the agency’s communications staff will make matters worse.
“The current administration, which has emphasized over and over again about radical transparency, should certainly be doing more to let consumers know what’s going on in these cases,” he said.
Darin Detwiler, a food safety expert and associate teaching professor at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies, said that it’s crucial for not only consumers but also other companies to know when any contamination occurs.
Under the Food Safety Modernization Act, food facilities are required to have food safety plans outlining how they will combat any contamination risks or other food safety hazards. Detwiler said these plans typically include likelihood-severity models, which measure the likelihood of a hazard occurring with the severity of its potential consequences.
“If a company is supposed to be putting together a likelihood-severity plan, and they don’t know that their competitors — their commodity, their industry — is having these problems, how are they supposed to adequately capture this idea of likelihood and severity and then act upon it?” Detwiler said.
