B9316966527Z.1_20150413221312_000_G5LAGF96P.1-0-300x300I spent some time this last week explaining Salmonella and Eggs – and Jail Time – to the media.

  • Bill Marler, an acclaimed food safety lawyer whose firm represented a group of more than 100 people who were sickened in the salmonella outbreak, said before the sentence was announced that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the DeCosters didn’t get any jail time.
  • Marler, who also represented the plaintiffs in the cantaloupe case, believes this shift toward punishing executives more harshly “wakes people up” to the issues at stake, and may even help prevent future fraudulence in the food industry.
  • “Knowing CEOs can go to jail has more impact on behavior than a lawsuit that ends up being paid off by an insurance company,” he said in June, after the DeCosters pleaded guilty. This week, he told the Associated Press that recent prosecutions in this area have definitely made an impression on the food producers he meets.
  • “The sentence sends an extremely strong message to food producers that the U.S. Attorney is going to look very hard at these kinds of outbreaks,” Marler said in a phone interview Monday.
  • “I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge didn’t sentence them to jail, but I’d be disappointed,” food safety lawyer Bill Marler, whose firm represented more than 100 people sickened in the outbreak, said ahead of sentencing.
  • Even if the DeCosters hadn’t received jail sentences, Marler said he believes the case along with several other high-profile prosecutions in food cases has made an impression on food producers he meets at conferences or in courtrooms.
  • “These criminal prosecutions send a message to the industry that the kind of behaviors that the DeCosters were into are not going to be tolerated,” said Bill Marler, a managing partner with Seattle-based Marler Clark, who represented nearly 100 victims of the salmonella outbreak linked to the DeCosters. “The fact that these criminal investigations and indictments are happening may well be the thing that makes our food supply safer.”
  • Bill Marler, dubbed “the most powerful food safety attorney” by The New Yorker, attributes the outbreaks to two main factors. One: It is “unclear as to who is responsible for oversight.” And two: The bacteria is simply endemic to poultry. Marler’s firm represents more than a hundred people sickened in the Quality Egg outbreak, which the CDC says caused 1,939 known illnesses, but could have actually hit as many as 56,000 people. The company’s “litany of shameful conduct,” as US District Judge Mark Bennett called it, included knowingly shipping eggs with falsified processing and expiration dates and at least two instances of bribing a USDA inspector. In addition to the three-month sentences for the DeCosters, each paid $100,000 in fines and the company paid $6.8 million as part of a plea agreement.
  • The lack of clarity around regulation is in part to blame, Marler says, a problem highlighted in The New Yorker profile:  In the U.S., responsibility for food safety is divided among fifteen federal agencies. The most important, in addition to the F.S.I.S., is the Food and Drug Administration, in the Department of Health and Human Services. In theory, the line between these two should be simple: the F.S.I.S. inspects meat and poultry; the F.D.A. covers everything else. In practice, that line is hopelessly blurred. Fish are the province of the F.D.A.—except catfish, which falls under the F.S.I.S. Frozen cheese pizza is regulated by the F.D.A., but frozen pizza with slices of pepperoni is monitored by the F.S.I.S. Bagel dogs are F.D.A.; corn dogs, F.S.I.S. The skin of a link sausage is F.D.A., but the meat inside is F.S.I.S.
  • Eggs, Marler says, are like the pepperoni pizza—they fall in a gray area between multiple agencies. Plus, when it comes to chickens, salmonella is just very common, and not confined to factory farms. Marler says even his own backyard chickens might have it.