All language subtitles for Poisoned.The.Dirty.Truth.About.Your.Food.2023.NF.WEBRip.DDP5.1.x264-EDITH-English

[SCANNER BEEPING]

[SCANNER BEEPING]

You know, we're told to eat healthy,

to sort of shop the perimeters
of the grocery stores,

but I think what a lot
of people don't realize

is... this also may be the riskiest areas.

[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS]

You know, when I look around,

I probably see 10, 15 different items.

The product's been contaminated,
or I sued companies on behalf of victims.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]

[CHUCKLES] I've litigated plenty of cases
of romaine lettuce.

Cut fruit, you know, countless outbreaks.

Cut cantaloupe.

Strawberries.

Caramel apples.

Tomatoes. Onions. Cookie dough.

The Similac infant formula.

Lucky Charms.

Chicken, you know, all these products
are likely contaminated.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES]

It starts to feel, though, like nothing
is safe, and you can't eat. Right?

Yeah, I mean, you know, the industry,
they send us these mixed messages.

They want us to buy their product,

but they ultimately don't want
to be responsible... for what they produce.

Until I show up.

["ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE"
BY BALFE, EMANUEL & KOFSKY PLAYS]

We have by far the safest food supply
in the entire world.

[WOMAN 1] The safest food supply
in the world.

Let's remember one thing,
we have the safest food supply

in the world right here in the US.

[REPORTER 1] The FDA is investigating
a hepatitis A outbreak,

possibly linked
to organic fresh strawberries.

A multistate salmonella outbreak.

Health experts believe it is linked
to some Jif peanut butter products.

[REPORTER 2] The recalls come
after at least two infant deaths

and several illnesses
were potentially tied to formula.

[REPORTER 3] A variety of brands
of raw cake mix have infected 16 people,

one of which
developed a type of kidney failure.

[WOMAN 2] We talk about our food supply
being the safest in the world,

and I believe it is.

[REPORTER 4] People reported getting sick,
being hospitalized for liver dysfunction,

and even having their gallbladders removed
in some cases.

[REPORTER 5]
One in four pieces of raw chicken

is contaminated with salmonella.

[REPORTER 6] The CDC announced
another E. coli outbreak

is impacting romaine lettuce.

We have the safest food supply
in the world.

[REPORTER 7] Melons from a Colorado farm

are contaminated
with what is called "listeria."

[REPORTER 8] Every four minutes,
someone is rushed to the hospital

because the food they ate made them sick.

We must continue to have
the safest food supply in the world.

Safest food in the world.

[MAN 1] Safest food supply in the world.

Safest food supply.

[WOMAN 3] Safest food supply in the world.

[MAN 2] We have the best, most efficient,
safest food supply in the entire world.

By golly, we need to keep it that way.

["ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE"
BY BALFE, EMANUEL & KOFSKY ENDS]

[NEWS THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[ANNOUNCER] Now, live at 11 o'clock.

The warning tonight from health officials
here in the Northwest.

They say you should be on the lookout
for a life-threatening illness

that's cropping up in our area.

Forty-five people are...

[BILL] I actually remember this
like it was yesterday.

[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS]

There was an E. coli outbreak
in the state of Washington

linked to something unknown.

[MAN] The whole problem started

when a pediatric infectious-disease
specialist called me and said,

"I've got 11 people who I've seen

in about 30 hours with E. coli O157."

I've never seen anything like this before.

And that was a big red light for me

that something bad was going on.

[REPORTER 1] Seven new cases
of E. coli poisoning were confirmed...

[REPORTER 2]
...E. coli patients remain hospitalized.

[REPORTER 3] There are 21 kids
in Western Washington hospitals.

Some experts say
it's all about to get worse.

[JOHN] We had no idea that it would be

the largest foodborne outbreak
in the United States.

[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS]

[MAN] I had just transferred
from active duty.

I was a nuclear engineer
on a submarine in the Navy.

I had a wife.

I had a nine-year-old son
and a 16-month-old son at the time.

There had already been some news...
Some rumblings about an E. coli outbreak.

But it didn't mean anything to me.
I never heard of E. coli.

"What's the worst that could happen?"

E. coli poisoning is a fairly new illness.

Not much is known about why the bacteria
causes some people to get so sick.

Mr. Kobayashi, can you tell us, uh,
the concern seems to be with secondary...

[JOHN] A big part of the outbreak
was explaining what E. coli O157 was.

I felt like I was, uh, Tony Fauci
for a couple of weeks. [CHUCKLES]

The average incubation period for most,
uh, people is three to four days.

The problem is that it can take up to
nine days before a person becomes ill.

The mainstay of disease prevention,
uh, for this type of illness

is thorough washing of hands,
uh, either when...

E. coli is a general category of bacteria,

and they're natural inhabitants
of everybody's intestines.

There are
many, many different kinds of E. coli.

Most don't do any harm at all.

But there are certain ones,
like E. coli O157,

that can make you real sick.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

Within a couple of days,

it became clear that it was linked
to Jack in the Box undercooked hamburgers.

More than 150 people have become ill
after eating tainted hamburger meat

at Jack in the Box restaurants
in Idaho and Washington State.

One child has died.

So one of the big problems
with E. coli O157

is they produce
what's called a Shiga toxin.

They get into the gut
and then start pumping out this toxin,

and that toxin gets into the blood,
and that will kill blood cells,

and then those lysed blood cells end up
causing organ failure,

the kidneys to shut down.

And that's how kids die.

There are now more than 312 cases
in our state alone.

And today there was another death.

So when the Jack in the Box case hit,

I was my fourth year out of law school.

I was 34 years old.

I got a phone call
from a former client of mine

who had a friend whose daughter,
Brianne Kiner, was in the hospital.

They asked me to go meet with them.

She'd been hospitalized for, you know,
four and a half, five months by then.

There's so many mechanical things going on

and wires going into her
and tubes going into her.

And I walked out of the room.
I was crying.

Because it was just really difficult,
you know?

It's difficult even today
to think about, you know,

Brianne in that situation.

You know, she was... she was so vulnerable.

And she just ate a freakin' hamburger.

[TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES]

The board of directors of Jack in the Box
is ordering a full investigation

into the deadly mistake.

The investigators
and the health department,

they were able to determine
that my kid got sick from this other kid

at the daycare center.

[REPORTER] Children's Hospital
is treating 18 children this evening,

four of whom got E. coli

not from hamburgers but from someone else,

a secondary infection.

[HEART MONITOR BEEPING]

[DARIN] All of a sudden,
there were two new doctors that came in.

They announced that they believed

he had developed
what's called hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Which essentially is,

when it gets so bad,

the E. coli basically was eating him away
from the inside.

That it was one organ after another.

I remember saving newspaper clippings,
thinking someday I'll be able to

communicate with my son and tell him how...

how brave he was

and how proud I was of him.

[REPORTER] I'd like to introduce
Vicki and Darin Detwiler,

whose 16-month-old son remains
in critical condition

at Tacoma's Mary Bridge Hospital.

My question to you now is,

what are you prepared to do
in regards to the tainted-meat problem?

First of all, we've got to make it clear
to people who are providing fast food

that they've got to do everything they can
to comply with our cooking regulations...

[JOHN] The regulation in the United States

was that hamburger should be cooked
to at least 140 degrees.

[THERMOMETER BEEPING]

In Washington State,

we had changed that law
to 155 degrees because we noticed

that many of the people with O157

had eaten poorly cooked hamburger.

[REPORTER] There's been lots
of attention on this story,

but I think there is still some confusion.

Was it undercooking or contaminated beef
that caused the problem?

Barry, I think that some of that confusion
has been probably from industry statements

trying to avoid some of the blame
for this. The answer is both.

The company was not following
the procedure

that was required
by the state of Washington,

which the company said
they didn't know anything about.

[REPORTER] Do you believe, in retrospect,

that Jack in the Box chose not to pay
attention to certain things, like the law?

No, I don't believe that at all.

We would never
choose not to pay attention to the law.

Why... why would a company choose
not to pay attention to the law?

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[BILL] During discovery, they dumped on me
about a million pages of documents.

I am pretty confident that they thought
that I wouldn't go through them,

but we started finding things
that were really interesting.

An employee of Jack in the Box

sent a letter in the suggestion box
to corporate headquarters saying,

"Hey, we're undercooking our hamburgers,
and we're having customer complaints."

And then you could see
the real paper trail.

Not only did they receive
the new regulations

from the state of Washington
for increased cook times

but that they actually thought about it

and made the decision
to essentially ignore it.

[TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES, ENDS]

Once I had that,

I called up the lawyer for Jack in the Box
and said, you know, "You're done."

Jack in the Box now admits
it misplaced a Washington State advisory

directing that all hamburgers
must be cooked at 155 degrees.

Jack in the Box
says it found the advisory when...

As a parent, you try to protect your kids.

And then something that's invisible
comes along that you don't know about,

that you've never even heard of. [INHALES]

It's so devastating.

Doctor says,
"You're gonna ask about second opinion

and third opinion, but there's zero chance
of recovery at this point."

That, uh, "There's been
so much organ damage,

and we're not able
to get enough oxygen into him

and that the amount of brain damage
at this point,

keeping him on life support any longer

would be... abusive."

Um...

"It's just...
it's not going to do anything."

I asked them to take everything off
so I could hold him for a little while.

And I actually had to get Dr. Crane
to come and... and check

because somehow I kept thinking
that if I just held him close enough,

that his heart would keep on beating
and that he'd keep on breathing.

[SAD MUSIC PLAYS]

[MARION] Four children died.

I mean, can you imagine?

They died from a hamburger
at Jack in the Box.

If you're the parent of one of those kids,
this is beyond your comprehension.

And I have to say
that E. coli O157 deaths are pretty awful.

They're not nice deaths.

[INDISTINCT BACKGROUND CHATTER]

[DARIN] Jack in the Box lawyers met
with us and offered us a settlement

that included essentially a gag order
that we could never talk about it.

And I had already made the decision

that there's no way I was gonna keep quiet
for the rest of my life

about what was the cause
of my son's death.

I couldn't handle the idea
of not doing anything,

even if that meant
that I needed to change careers.

I am a professor and assistant dean

focused on regulatory affairs
of food and food industries...

[OFF CAMERA] I teach about food safety
and food policy as a professor.

I teach grad students.

I had to try to do something to prevent
others from being in the same situation.

Good evening, everyone.

It's the largest personal injury
settlement ever in our state.

It looks like the parent company
for Jack in the Box restaurants

will have to pay millions of dollars
for serving undercooked hamburgers.

Settlement is expected to cost
Jack in the Box at least $10 million.

$4.4 million.

$15.6 million.

We're very confident that, uh,
that money will be sufficient

to care for Brianne over the course
of her life, however...

[MAN] Bill Marler not only became
the most important attorney

in terms of handling lawsuits
against the companies

that are responsible for those outbreaks,

but he's also become
a much larger advocate.

I'm tired of visiting
with horribly sick kids

who did not have to be sick
in the first place.

I am outraged...

He has become one of the dominant voices

in food safety reform
in the United States,

having started out
as a plaintiff's attorney.

[INTERVIEWER] Specific to Jack in the Box,
how did the burgers get contaminated?

[HESITATES] So, we don't know exactly

how the Jack in the Box hamburger
got contaminated,

but, you know,
generally, we know how it happens.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

It's usually in the slaughter facility.

It's, uh, nicking of a gut
of a cow during slaughter.

But the whole meat industry was premised
on the fact that the slaughterhouses

and the beef packers could essentially do
whatever they wanted to do.

And it was up to consumers

to cook the E. coli out of the product.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

If you buy a piece of steak,
that's a piece of meat from one animal.

If there is E. coli, it's on the outside.
It's not in the middle.

So searing the steak would help kill that.

The problem is that
when you buy ground beef,

you now take the outsides,
and they're part of the insides.

[TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES]

Not only are you bringing
all the animals together

and slaughtering them
in the same facility,

now you're taking chunks
of multiple animals,

and you're grinding them up
into one big mess.

[MARION] Hamburger, sometimes,
is the result of mixing meat

from as many as 400 animals.

[CHUCKLING] Kind of awful to think about.

If one of those animals
has this toxic form of E. coli,

you're in trouble.

[BILL] In the aftermath
of Jack in the Box,

you know,
people from USDA met with victims,

and, you know, the Clinton Administration,
to their credit,

brought in people
who were pretty activist.

Mike?

[BILL] You know, Mike Taylor being one.

We intend to reduce
the risk of foodborne illness

associated with the consumption
of meat and poultry products

to the maximum extent possible.

[ASSISTANT] Thank you.

[MIKE] The official policy of the USDA was

that this is not the responsibility
of the regulatory system or the industry.

Consumers are expected
to cook these products

and make them safe themselves.

The bottom line
is that raw meat contains bacteria.

And proper cooking kills bacteria.

[MIKE] To mothers that lost children,

to people whose families
had been harmed by this outbreak,

that was, uh, a shocking
and highly unacceptable revelation.

We simply had to take action immediately
to try to change the dynamic.

And so I did make the decision
that we would declare

O157:H7 to be an adulterant,

and raw ground beef in the marketplace
would be deemed illegal,

and USDA could take action
to remove it quickly from the market.

That was a big game changer.

It meant that it can't be in the meat.

If it was in the meat,
you had to pull it off the marketplace.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

You know, the rates that you see today
are very minimal,

and you rarely see an E. coli outbreak
involving ground beef,

so it's a strong argument of just how much
those reforms had an impact.

[TENSE MUSIC ENDS]

[BILL] Thirty years ago,

all the work that I did
was E. coli cases linked to hamburger.

[INHALES] Today, that's zero.

I mean, it's a success story.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]

It used to be the biggest E. coli threat
was from hamburgers.

So you'd think, "Okay, as long as
I don't eat hamburgers, I'm okay."

And the CDC with a warning this afternoon

about an E. coli outbreak
linked to baby spinach.

[REPORTER 1]
Health officials are warning consumers

to not eat
Josie's Organics organic baby spinach.

[REPORTER 2] Several cases of E. coli
linked to organic power greens.

[CHRISTINE] And now E. coli is

by far, uh, caused by lettuce
more than ground beef.

When you eat a hamburger,

the most dangerous part of that
is not the burger.

It's going to be the onion,
lettuce, and the tomatoes.

- [BIRDS CHIRPING]
- [DOG BARKS]

You know, I've had bad potato salad
or something that was, you know...

Just food poisoning

was my idea
of what a foodborne illness is.

[CANDIE] Stephanie came to me,
um, the morning we were leaving

and just said, you know,
that she was feeling a little...

Having some gas
and, you know, a little bit of diarrhea.

But she just thought she was nervous,
and we didn't think anything of it at all.

[CANDIE] One, two, three.

[PILOT] Ladies and gentlemen,

let me be the first
to welcome you to Punta Cana.

[CANDIE] When we got
to the Dominican Republic,

and we were at the resort,

she felt like she was feeling
a little bit better.

She took a shower.

But throughout the night, it progressed,
getting worse and worse,

and that's when I realized
we needed to get some help.

It was an absolute nightmare
of tests and doctors.

They kept telling us, "She'll be better.
We'll give her these antibiotics."

"She has this kind of bug.
She'll be back at the resort tomorrow."

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]

And then the next morning,

when they let me go in to see her,

she didn't recognize me.

She was... she was pulling at her hair.

[REPORTER SPEAKING SPANISH]

I'm like, "She's having a seizure."

Her kidneys had stopped functioning,
and she was having swelling of her brain.

They made me leave,
and they all rushed in,

and it was just like
from a bad... [CHUCKLES, SNIFFLES]

A nightmare.

Uh, the whole thing.

The doctor pulled Candie aside
in a hallway

and said, you know,
"You got to get her out of here."

[INDISTINCT CHATTER OVER RADIO]

I immediately went home and contacted,

you know, over a dozen,
uh, medevac, uh, operations

and found one
that was gonna get her out immediately.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[CANDIE] It was then that next morning

that they found the Shiga toxins
in her system

to be able to say
it was definitely from E. coli.

They said, "She might not make it
through the night."

"Get your son back from San Francisco."

A priest was there within a couple hours
to give her last rites.

[INHALES]

[MAN] Stephanie's condition
rapidly deteriorated overnight

in a very critical condition.

I think she had
a few more hours to live, unfortunately.

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]

It is a very scary, uh, situation
where you have a perfectly healthy,

athletic 17-year-old female
that goes on spring break,

and 48 hours later, she's dying.

[SCOTT] Stephanie had
an infectious disease doctor

who had us, I mean,
basically, "Collect what you can."

"Talk to all her friends."

"Go through her bank statements
to find out what she ate."

'Cause we're thinking whatever she...
This may play a role in saving her life.

So we were thorough,

thorough to find out everything,
you know, she ate

over the, you know, previous week or two.

Her friend who she ate at Panera with
sent us a snapshot...

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]

...of a sign.

It wasn't until then that we put
two and two together. "Romaine lettuce?"

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[REPORTER 1] Dozens of people
have ended up in the hospital

with possible cases of E. coli.

[REPORTER 2] Ninety-eight people
from 22 different states,

making this the biggest multistate
E. coli outbreak in at least 12 years.

[REPORTER 3]
The affected region is Yuma, Arizona.

- [BIRD CAWING]
- [TENSE MUSIC STOPS]

[WOMAN] Most of the lettuce
that we eat in the United States

comes from two places.

It comes from California's Central Valley,
and it comes from Yuma, Arizona.

[BILL] The US is one of the top producers
and exporters of leafy greens.

So that means that the lettuce grown
in Yuma and in Salinas

is shipped all over the world.

We're in a global food system

where we're importing
and exporting food all over the place.

So problems that occur here
can certainly be exported elsewhere.

Bacteria don't care about borders.

They don't care about import
and export restrictions.

[WOMAN] Consumers don't cook lettuce.

There's no way to control that risk
in our kitchen. We eat it fresh.

[DARIN] So there's no kill step.

You can clean it,
but you're still not truly killing.

[BILL] And "organic" only means
that it uses less chemicals, pesticides.

Organic simply doesn't mean pathogen-free.

Explain how we get E. coli in greens.

Right. So it's actually not
the lettuce's fault.

- [RACHAEL] That's right. It really isn't.
- It's the livestock.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS]

[LANCE] How we raise animals
can fuel the growth of these bugs.

So if we crowd the animals together,

and you have one that's carrying
a really bad pathogen like E. coli O157,

then they can poop those bacteria out.

And then,
the shit from the cattle washes off

into the streams or into canals,
irrigation canals,

and then those can be used
to water these plants.

You have this distribution system

for these pathogens
from animals to produce.

[MARION] The regulation
of animal waste is minimal.

We have laws on the books,
but they're not enforced.

That is an American scandal.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[BILL] What got Stephanie sick was
romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona,

specifically in the Wellton Canal area,

which happens to run right past
the concentrated feedlots.

Those are land-use issues that,

I think, are the things that FDA, USDA,
the federal government, state governments,

Environmental Protection Agency,

all of those entities haven't kind of come
to grips with that yet.

[LANCE] There are 15 federal agencies
that in one form or another,

are tasked with food safety regulation.

[BILL] The USDA primarily deals with meat.

They were at the helm
of the Jack in the Box E. coli case.

And the FDA deals with leafy greens,
like romaine and spinach.

[TENSE MUSIC ENDS]

- [ASSISTANT] Go ahead.
- [WOMAN] Nice to meet you.

- Do you care which side? You pick.
- [WOMAN] No. I don't.

Okay, I'll sit over here.

[GRUNTS] Great.

[INTERVIEWER] Okay, we ready?

What falls under your jurisdiction?
What falls under your jurisdiction?

Sure, I'll start.

USDA regulates meat and poultry products,
egg products, and catfish.

And the FDA regulates, uh,
all foods involved in interstate commerce

that Sandy didn't mention,
so it's about 80% of the US food system.

It's a large responsibility
and one that we take very seriously.

The regulatory framework

we have in the world
of food safety is pretty complicated.

Let's say you have a beef taco
that's made in a restaurant.

[KNIFE CLANGING]

So the beef,
well, that's a USDA-regulated food.

Cheese and any of the pico de gallo
that's on top of that,

those are FDA-regulated foods.

All of the making of that taco,
well, that's happening in a restaurant

that's regulated
by the local health department.

So it's a really complicated process.

There's lots of different fingers

that can be touching regulatory
on that taco.

When there's a foodborne illness outbreak,

no single agency is responsible.

So there's a lot of finger-pointing.

[INTERVIEWER]
Ms. Eskin, does the USDA do anything

on these cattle operations

to make sure animal waste
isn't getting into the irrigation water?

We have no direct authority on any
of the production pieces of food animals...

We are doing the best
that we can do with our authorities...

We don't have that authority...
We do not have authority...

Authority we have or don't have...

[INTERVIEWER] Feels like a gap
in the system. Does it not?

I think that's a question
you need to ask Congress...

That's Congress's decision...

The inspection process
has to be raised with Congress...

It's not for us to say.

It's really something
that has to come from Congress.

[INTERVIEWER] To your response
that it's a question for Congress,

would you support legislation
that gave USDA jurisdiction on the farm?

I'm not in a position
to endorse legislation.

As the regulatory body,
that's not our lane.

[INTERVIEWER] Mr. Yiannas, what is
the FDA doing to solve the problem,

and should consumers be satisfied?

We believe that the FDA,
as well as the entire food industry,

the fresh leafy green industry,
can and must do more.

Let me stress, must do more.

Growers have a responsibility,

the primary responsibility
to understand whether their products

can be contaminated
and take measures to mitigate those risks.

[TIM] My name is Tim York. T-I-M Y-O-R-K

[INTERVIEWER]
How should I title you for your position?

Uh, CEO.

- [INTERVIEWER] Of?
- LGMA.

LGMA stands for
Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement.

We were started in 2007 to, uh,
ensure safety in lettuce and leafy greens.

[INTERVIEWER] What are some of
the more recognizable handlers

that are part of the LGMA
that we might know?

Members of LGMA
would include Dole, Fresh Express,

Ready Pac, Taylor Farms, uh, Organic Girl.

Those are all names you probably see
on the retail shelf of packaged salads.

[SARAH]
The Leafy Greens Marketing Agreements

were formed in response
to the 2006 spinach outbreak.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]

Feds have a new warning about spinach.

They want you to stay away from
all spinach, not just the bagged produce.

We're talking about hundreds of bags
of raw spinach out here.

Now, no one is eating raw spinach,
and all of it is going in the garbage.

[REPORTER] This is
the same deadly strain of E. coli

that we saw
in the Jack in the Box outbreak.

[TIMOTHY] The industry was terrorized.

They worried that if this were to occur
again and again and again,

if they didn't get to the bottom
of this problem,

that it would essentially destroy
the California leafy greens industry.

The spinach outbreak of 2006

was a watershed moment for the industry
because that was really the first time

that we were aware
of how our practices affected people.

How do pathogens move?

We look at a number of things.

One of them being water.

One of them being proximity
to other operations.

One of them would be
the sanitation practices

and how they handle machinery
and equipment on the farm.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES]

[BILL] I think it's just been
really a matter

of the industry
sort of does a whack-a-mole.

"Oh, we'll do testing."

"Oh, we'll make everybody wear a hairnet."

But they just don't want to come to grips
with the fact that the big problem is

cattle farms and feedlots
in close proximity

to where you're growing leafy greens.

[CATTLE MOOING]

[INTERVIEWER] How often do your members
test their irrigation water?

[SIGHS]

I don't honestly know the answer
to that question. Um...

Irrigation water is required
to be tested on an ongoing basis

to know that
that is meeting our practices.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[BILL] You know, some of the work
the LGMA has done has been admirable.

But in my view,

it's a way to make sure
that the government,

uh, doesn't enforce rules on them
they don't really like.

One of the ways to avoid
government regulation is to say,

"We'll regulate ourselves."

[SPLUTTERS] I honestly don't know
what action

the government was potentially going
to take if we didn't.

But the reason the LGMA was formed is

because we could do that
so much faster than the government.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[MIKE] Who do you hold accountable
for fixing this?

The growers don't control
the practices of the cattlemen.

The cattlemen, you know,

feel that they're not responsible
for produce safety.

There's not enough impetus
for people to break out of their silos

and say, "We've got to come up
with a solution that figures out,

how can you use vaccines
to make this better?"

"How can you adjust the cattle feed
to reduce the E. coli?"

And that... you know,
my frustration is that's not happening,

and people are getting sick,
and that's, uh... you know, that's sad.

That's disturbing.

[TENSE MUSIC ENDS]

[SEAGULLS SQUAWKING]

[PHONE RINGING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[KEYBOARD CLACKING]

[BILL] In my 30 years
of experience doing this,

most companies don't want to, obviously,
see me show up at their doorstep.

You know,
the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement,

they're trying to do the right thing.

They're just not going the full distance
that I think they should go.

[INHALES] You know,
these outbreaks at Jack in the Box,

they didn't intend that to happen,

but I kind of put those folks
in a different category

than I would the folks
from Peanut Corporation of America.

[REPORTER 1] Food and Drug Administration
is advising Americans not to eat

any products made
with peanut butter or peanut paste.

[REPORTER 2] More than 500 people
have gotten sick in the outbreak,

and at least eight may have died
as a result of salmonella infection.

[BILL] This was
an enormous salmonella outbreak.

[REPORTER 3]
Officials are focusing on peanut products

produced by this Georgia plant
owned by Peanut Corporation of America.

[MIKE] The Peanut Corporation of America
was a major peanut product producer.

They provided peanut paste
and peanut products

to hundreds of different major brands
in the United States.

[MAN] Chips Deluxe
with peanut butter cups.

- [BOY] Peanut butter cups? No way.
- [MAN] Way.

[INSECTS CHIRPING]

I started working at Peanut Corp
in July 2006.

I could tell things were going to go bad.

- [TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]
- [SLIDE PROJECTOR CLICKING]

The things that had concerned me were,
number one, the roof leak.

Because that washes in bird crap,

which can bring in a whole host
of disease into the plant.

And the pest control person that brought
in to my attention the mice problem.

[MAN] There are some rats,
uh, and they're still alive.

[KENNETH] The first time
I had brought up, uh, concerns

to Stewart Parnell, the owner,

he told me to shut up
and not worry about it,

that they had recall insurance
and just go on doing my job.

Stewart Parnell
not only grossly underestimated

food safety as a CEO of a food company,

but he blatantly and even flagrantly

just didn't care.

[MAN] And here we have another live rat.

[RAT SQUEAKING]

[BILL] Ultimately, what happened was
that some of the large companies

that were getting their product
from PCA had requirements,

contractual requirements
to test the product before it was shipped.

And they were supposed to give
those companies a piece of paper

called a certificate of analysis
that said the product was tested

and it's free of pathogens
or likely free of pathogens.

[MARION] And lo and behold,

they had a test that came out positive
for the toxic salmonella.

Well, what they ended up doing

was retesting
until they got a negative test.

[BILL] Then it got to the point
where all of them were positive,

and then they just started forging
the certificates of analysis,

saying they were negative.

[DARIN] The QA manager,

there's a reason why she has
the nickname "the Queen of Liquid Paper."

If they didn't have
the results that they needed,

they would literally take old results,

Liquid Paper over the date,
and change the date

to make it look like
it's a more recent date.

Stewart Parnell told the manager
in an email to ship the peanut mill.

And the manager said,

"Well, I've got to spray off the rat shit
and dirt before I can do anything."

Stewart said,
"Well, then clean it up and ship it."

There were lots of emails.

[KEYBOARD CLACKING]

And they had emails
from the heads of the company saying,

"Oh, you've got
a positive salmonella test."

"Ship it out anyway."

A salmonella outbreak involving products
made with peanut butter is worsening.

These were recalled too.

The list of items is so long, Campbell,
I can't even read them all right now.

[BILL] It was over 3,000, almost 4,000,

different products got recalled.

[MAN] Here we go with another pallet.
I think this is number six.

It's still sealed.

I emailed
the Texas Department of Agriculture,

the FDA.

I... I must have sent a hundred emails.

[REPORTER] Product recalls
continue mounting.

Nobody else was gonna stop them
from killing people.

So somebody had to step up.

He went to the federal government

and started, you know,
saying how bad the plant was.

The White House today called
the plant's performance alarming

and promised tougher regulation
over America's food supply.

At bare minimum, we should be able
to count on our government

keeping our kids safe
when they eat peanut butter.

That's what Sasha eats for, uh...
for lunch probably three times a week.

[REPRESENTATIVE] Mr. Parnell,
Mr. Lightsey,

let me just cut to the chase then.

In this container are products
that have your ingredients in them.

I just wonder, would either of you
be willing to take the lid off

and eat any of these products now?

Mr. Chairman, and members
of the committee,

on the advice of my counsel,

I respectfully decline
to answer your question

based on the protection afforded me
under the United States Constitution.

[GREG] You're dismissed.

Sometimes manufacturers of food
don't really think of it as food.

It becomes a... a commodity.

So they don't think about it
in the sense of, "Oh, my goodness,

this is going to go into somebody's mouth
and into their stomach."

My father was
a highly decorated Korean War veteran

and was awarded
three Purple Hearts for his valor.

His final battle occurred when he ate
some contaminated peanut butter from PCA.

[CHRISTINE] When you spend time
with these victims and speak with them,

they don't get over it.

It's not a natural form of grief

when someone you love dies from,
um, a bunch of peanut butter crackers.

Our family feels cheated.
My mom should be here today.

[TIMOTHY] The FDA partnered
with the Department of Justice,

and they brought felony counts
against Stewart Parnell and his associates

for knowingly and intentionally
shipping contaminated products

that had toxic salmonella
into the stream of commerce.

[REPORTER 1] Stewart Parnell,
he is sentenced yesterday

to 28 years behind bars.

[REPORTER 2] Eight people died, sir.

Do you have anything to say
to their families?

[KENNETH] It doesn't bother him
to this day because he's still appealing.

"Murdering people is okay."

And I'm sorry. I call this murder.

He knew
that there was salmonella in there.

So, you know, Stewart,

why would you ship that
knowing you could kill people?

Explain to the families.

Criminal prosecution is appropriate
when it comes to really bad actors.

People like Stewart Parnell,
who knowingly sold contaminated product,

or Jack DeCoster, the Egg King.

[REPORTER 1] Salmonella outbreaks
sickening hundreds

have led to a national egg recall.

[REPORTER 2] The numbers are enough
to give anyone shell shock.

The recall has grown
to more than 500 million eggs

from just two farms in Iowa.

The chairman and owner,
Austin Jack DeCoster.

[CHRISTINE] Jack DeCoster is a businessman

who's been in the farming industry
for easily 50 years.

And in place after place
and time after time,

he has run filthy farms.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

[BILL] He knew that their product
was being produced

in really insanitary conditions

that likely would have resulted
in eggs being contaminated.

A pile of manure at one of them,
eight feet high.

Pile of manure, eight feet high, leaking!

As many as 56,000 Americans
were sickened because of it.

How is it possible
that after all this time,

we have another DeCoster egg producer
involved in a half-billion-dollar recall?

- [CUP CLATTERING]
- [CLICKS TONGUE]

Well, the question is complicated, so...

You can...

[CHRISTINE]
For decades he got away with it.

But he finally was convicted
and, um, was given a short prison term.

[DARIN] There will never be
an end to bad actors

who decide that profit
is more important than ethics.

We have laws.

We have regulatory authorities
and regulatory agencies,

and these things still happen, even today.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[DOOR OPENS]

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

[BILL] Come on, guys.

Come on, come on.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

After the Wright County egg outbreak,

I wound up on Larry King Live,
talking about,

you know, foodborne illness again.

And sort of at the end of the segment,

I just said, "I'm gonna get chickens,"
as just sort of a throwaway line.

When I got home,
my youngest daughter was like,

"Oh, so we're gonna get chickens."

So now we have chickens,

and now she's off at college,
and we still have chickens.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS]

More people are becoming sick
from a salmonella outbreak.

- Salmonella outbreak.
- [REPORTER 1] Salmonella outbreak.

- Salmonella outbreak.
- Large salmonella outbreak.

[REPORTER 2] More than 100 people
have been sent to the hospital.

- [REPORTER 3] Three hundred cases.
- [REPORTER 4] Made 278 people ill.

At age two, I was hospitalized
for 11 days, uh, in New Haven.

Uh, my folks... It was an isolation.

My folks couldn't come to see me.

[SPLUTTERS] You know,
so I am a survivor of salmonella.

Uh, and it's... uh, it's a killer.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES]

[SARAH] If you look at the two bacteria
that are most likely

to send you to the hospital from food,

it's salmonella
and a germ called campylobacter.

And if you look at the foods
that are most likely

to be the source for those bacteria,

at least from the outbreak data,
it's chicken.

And so if we want
to address foodborne illness,

we wanna bring those numbers down,
chicken is the place to start.

Four companies now control more than half
the market in chicken processing.

So it's a very consolidated industry,

and it means those companies
have a lot of control over our food.

At the top, the very top of the chain,

there are really just two breeders
controlling the entire poultry supply

in the sense that they provide the eggs.

And those companies
largely operate in secrecy.

Their customers are not the public.
They're not very communicative.

And it's very hard to tell
what practices they're using

to keep those eggs from spreading disease.

[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYS]

Perdue is very focused on food safety,

and, um, what makes us
a little bit different,

I believe, it came from, uh,
the "no antibiotics ever" move.

Well, tonight, there's a major change
coming to your dinner table.

Perdue, the chicken makers,
say it's dropping most human antibiotics

from its chicken products.

[BRUCE] In order to do that,
we needed to change a lot of things

about how we raise chickens.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]

Perdue produces
a little over 12 million chickens a week.

So the eggs come in.

Uh, we want to get them
to the hatchery as fast as we can.

Make sure that they're
in a clean environment.

[BRUCE IN SCENE]
We asked them, the farmer,

if there are some eggs
that are more likely to be dirty,

put them on the bottom.

We've been using this tool.
We can swab a lot of eggs

and get immediate feedback

on how much material is on

and how much organic material
is alive on the egg.

[BRUCE IN SCENE] 770's in the middle.

Not terribly dirty
but not perfectly clean either.

That doesn't mean there's salmonella,

but it does give you a sense
of... of opportunity for salmonella.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

It takes 21 days to hatch a chicken from,
uh, an embryonated or a fertilized egg.

[BRUCE IN SCENE]
So he's partially working his way out.

- Taking a break.
- [MAN] Yeah.

[BRUCE] Gonna work his way out some more.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC INTENSIFIES]

[BRUCE] The chicks,
after they've hatched at the hatchery,

and we've done all we can there
to keep them clean,

we move them to the farm.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

They come here a day old.

Day they hatch, we get them here,
put them in the chicken house.

They stay here about 45 days.

These birds here are about 14 days,
two weeks old.

So we monitor
for specific types of salmonella,

and we use this sampling technique
called boot swabs, or bootie swabs,

where you take a sock that's doused
in skim milk, put it over your boot,

and walk through the chicken house trying
to sample as many chicken's droppings

as you can possibly pick up
with those boots.

And we figure over 100 chickens contribute
to the bootie sample.

We send that to the lab
and look for salmonella.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES]

[BRUCE IN SCENE]
This is boneless, skinless breast.

It comes down the line after
it's been taken off the, uh, bone.

It goes into this unit and is washed.

There's some peracetic acid,
helps us keep it clean

from the process that we just did
all the way to the package.

We believe that if a bird came in
with a little bit of salmonella,

it'd be washed off and taken care of.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

One of the big broken pieces
of the American food safety system

is that we don't monitor anything
on the farm.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

Those are off-limits to regulators.

[LANCE] The problem lies in that a lot
of salmonella is found at the farm level,

at the hatchery level.

[BRAKES HISS]

And, you know,
USDA's jurisdiction doesn't kick in

until those chickens
actually enter the slaughter plant.

[ASSISTANT] A-mark.

[INTERVIEWER] Let's just start off with,
tell me what you do for work.

[INSPECTOR IN DISTORTED VOICE] I am
a USDA consumer safety inspector,

and I inspect chickens.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

We run over 300,000 chickens a day.

We're looking at 175 birds a minute,
and they're going by so fast.

There's only one inspector
at the very end of the line,

and they do miss a lot sometimes.

Some of the plants I've worked at,

I feel like the chicken's
not safe to go out.

I feel like consumers
would really be shocked

at some of the stories
that we could tell them.

I've seen... [SIGHS]

...plant person
throwing chickens in the chiller

and would have fecal matter in them.

I've seen inspectors sleep on the line
and product just going on by.

And you'll see employees,
they've been to the bathroom.

They're not washing their hands.

I've seen... [SIGHS]

...people drop their knives,
not attempt to pick them up and wash it,

just go right back to using it.

They got a quota they gotta meet.

And, you know,
I feel like they're there to make a profit

and get the chickens through.

They don't care what shape they're in.

The USDA inspection regime is really...
goes back to the early 1900s

and, you know,
Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle.

[NARRATOR] It was not a pleasant novel.

It told of conditions of filth
and carelessness in the handling of meat,

and those who read it
became concerned and aroused.

It's an outrage.

[MIKE] Meat and poultry inspection laws
are designed to deal with the problem

that Teddy Roosevelt addressed in 1906
in meatpacking plants in Chicago,

which is diseased animals
coming into facilities,

spoiled meat being put
into the food system.

[BILL] Frankly, when they built
that inspection regime,

we didn't even understand viruses
and bacteria.

[MAN] Every bird must be
individually inspected.

It must prove to be wholesome,
or else it is condemned.

[MARION] What they're expected to do
has nothing to do with bacteria.

You can't see bacteria.

They're not visible to the naked eye.

[TENSE MUSIC INTENSIFIES]

[MIKE] You have hundreds,
if not thousands,

of poultry inspectors
sitting on slaughter lines,

watching birds go by,
to meet the statutory mandate

to have a US government inspector look at
every chicken that goes through a facility

with no meaningful benefit
for food safety.

It's a waste
of hundreds of millions of dollars.

I disagree with that assessment
for a number of reasons.

They do look at the product.

That's what the law requires
under current statutes.

They look at the records
that companies keep

to ensure that they're doing
what they're supposed to do,

and they sample and test product.

[INSPECTOR IN DISTORTED VOICE]
We run millions of birds a month.

We test five salmonella samples a month
of a whole bird.

And we do five samples of parts
at our plant.

That's all the USDA does.

And just because it says
that "USDA inspected" on there,

it don't mean nothing
because it's gotta be on their label.

I wouldn't want to eat nothing coming
from some of the plants myself.

When you bring raw poultry
into your kitchen,

you're taking a significant risk.

The real problem
is that even somebody as careful as me,

I'm a microbiologist
that studies these pathogens,

when I bring these packages into my house,

it's really hard
not to contaminate things.

I'm gonna open that package,

and I'm immediately gonna put
that plastic into the trash.

I'm gonna use my foot.

Then I'm gonna take the chicken

and immediately put it into,
you know, hot oil and start frying it.

- [WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYS]
- [CHICKEN SIZZLING]

Then I'm gonna throw away
the rest of the package,

but this time I touched the top
of the trash can, right?

And then I go wash my hand,
and I turn on the faucet.

I've just contaminated the faucet.

I pump the soap.
I've just contaminated the soap.

I'm gonna wash my hands really well.

Then I'm gonna rinse my hands,
and shut off the faucet.

I've just recontaminated my hand,
and I'm gonna go make a salad.

As careful as I am,
those bacteria get around.

[WHIMSICAL MUSIC ENDS]

Once that salmonella is dry,
it can stay on surfaces for months.

It could still make someone sick
when ingested.

You should know that when you bring
raw poultry into your kitchen,

you are introducing
into your household a biohazard,

and you should handle it accordingly.

[CHICKEN SIZZLING]

[LANCE] When you consume salmonella,

some of those strains also
are resistant to multiple antibiotics,

and so the likelihood that a treatment
is going to fail is much higher.

Those bacteria are going to continue
to grow in your blood,

and sadly, people die of these infections.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]

[MANSOUR] So the way we test foods,

I think the samples dropped off here
for us to test were five samples

of... of chicken that were purchased
from local grocery stores.

In about one hour, we get results,

whether it has salmonella or not.

[INTERVIEWER]
On our first day of production,

we went to a food safety lab in Seattle.

We picked up five brands
of raw chicken and tested them.

And we were told by the lab,
"You're not gonna get positive results."

"It's too small of a sample."

We got one positive results,
and it was Perdue.

- Can I just ask for your reaction to that?
- [SMACKS LIPS]

I would say a chicken is, uh,
not even a fair thing to talk about.

Uh, so, I mean, again,
we run hundreds of birds

in order to understand where we're at.

And the other part is I would wonder

what the salmonella was in particular.

[INTERVIEWER] It was infantis.

Yeah. Having said that, one chicken
is not a fair... uh, fair discussion at all.

[INTERVIEWER] What do you think would be
a fair sample set?

A hundred and fifty, uh,
in a relatively short period of time.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[INTERVIEWER] So you're going
to be testing 150 chicken parts

for us over the course of five weeks

from the top four major brands
in this country.

You're close to the end
of testing all one hundred...

We're slightly...
We're about 60% of testing

if you intend to bring in 150.

Great. If I buy chicken
at the grocery store,

should I assume it's safe for me?

In this country, if you buy poultry,
uh, from any grocery store,

regardless of the brand
of poultry that you buy,

your... your primary assumption
should be that

it contains pathogens
such as salmonella and campylobacter.

The fact of the matter is salmonella
in chicken is okay to be sold.

It's not an adulterant.

So it's fine to knowingly sell
salmonella, campylobacter-tainted chicken.

[EASY LISTENING MUSIC PLAYS]

There was a famous case where
the government and industry simply said

that it was the housewife's job
to protect the family.

[BRIAN] What it boils down to

is the courts ruled that, you know,

the salmonella can't be considered
an adulterant

because housewives know
how to cook chicken.

[NARRATOR] Can she prepare
those favorite dishes of Tim's

just like his mother used to make?

[BRIAN] And therefore,
it doesn't pose a threat to human illness.

[NARRATOR] Remember, it pays to play safe
in the kitchen.

This terrible court case
dealt a death blow

to... to regulation in the United States
regarding salmonella.

Sadly, a true death blow
to a lot of people since.

The USDA throws up its hand and says,

"Toxic salmonella are a normal part
of raw chicken."

"You don't want toxic salmonella?
Cook it."

[BILL] That's what we're trying to change.

The burden shouldn't be with consumers.

And that's why we filed
a petition with the USDA.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

Well, welcome. Let me just say
it's so good to really be,

uh, with... with all of you.

I... I just have such high regard
for the work that you do and...

I know, Bill, you have petitions
that you have moving forward,

and Sarah, you do, uh, as well.

And I'd love to have you just update me.

I made a really broad petition
that would essentially encompass

making all salmonellas
that cause human disease an adulterant.

Draw a line in the sand and say, you know,
"Thou shalt not have a pathogen

in your food that can sicken
or kill your kid."

[CHUCKLES] Science supports that.

Yeah, these pathogens are taking advantage
of the gaps we have in our current system.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the common thread
of all the work that we're all doing

is modernizing the outdated system
that we have now.

[SPLUTTERS] That's the importance
of this conversation.

You spoke, Sarah, about the gaps.

- [SARAH] Mm.
- Where are... And I speak legislatively.

Where are the gaps
that we need to try to fill in?

We really don't have a government agency

that's able to go onto farms
and look at food safety risks.

They can regulate diseases
that cause animal illnesses,

but they turn a blind eye to the diseases
that cause human illness.

If it makes you sick...

[HESITATES] ...let's regulate it.

We can do it,

but I... I don't have
to tell anyone around this table

about the strength of the lobby.

- [BILL] Right.
- [BRIAN] Yeah.

[ROSA] You have to know
what you're up against.

The food lobbyists are more powerful
than the consumer at the moment.

It's... it's very, very political.

Um...

In... in a very, um...
in my view, in a dangerous way.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[MARION] Food companies hate regulation.

They pay very expensive lobbyists

to lobby the federal government

to make sure that the regulatory oversight
is extremely limited.

Madam chairman and committee members,

as you can appreciate,
there are many issues impacting the state

of the chicken industry
as I speak to you today.

[MARION] They go to Congress and say,

"We know you're considering a bill

to pass very tight regulations
about food safety."

As Henry Ford once said,
"Don't find fault. Find a remedy."

[BILL] As soon as we propose something,

you know,
the industry groups are gonna come in,

and they're gonna have their stories

about why this would be burdensome
on industry,

and meat prices are gonna go higher,

people are gonna lose their jobs,
and it's the consumer's responsibility.

All those arguments
were the ones they said,

you know, when E. coli O157:H7
was listed as an adulterant.

You know, the world was gonna fall apart,
and it didn't.

[TENSE MUSIC ENDS]

[MINDY] I was
the undersecretary for food safety

which was the highest-ranking
food safety official in the US.

And, I mean, I'm a scientist.
I'm not a politician.

I was there to make the food supply safe.

When you put agendas
and, you know, political interest aside,

then you can solve problems.

You can get data,
you can find the answers,

and then you can find something
that actually works.

Obviously, regulations are important.
I'm not saying they're not.

But it's better for us to be able
to come to the table

before we have to move to regulation.

[INTERVIEWER] When you were nominated
for your position by President Trump,

a lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's
Beef Association said that this was

great news for the industry.

Why was the industry
so excited about you in particular?

Because I'm a scientist,

and they knew I'd make
data-driven, science-based decisions.

[INTERVIEWER]
It had nothing to do with the fact

that you had received a lot of money
for your research

from this very same group over the years?

No. I mean... [SPLUTTERS]

No. [CHUCKLES]

I do wish that that money, you know,
was my personal money.

It never... It wasn't.
It was university given to...

It was money given
to the university to do research.

And that's how we fund research programs,
is through grants from the cattlemen,

through, uh, you know, the meat institute,
all those different organizations.

[INTERVIEWER] Are you saying it isn't
a conflict of interest for you to regulate

the very industry that has funded
so many of your studies?

It didn't necessarily change the way
I looked at the industry at all.

If anything, you know,
I knew where the pathogens were

and how to control them

and all of those different components
of the industry.

So I think it just made me
a stronger person in that position.

[INTERVIEWER] Was your nomination
also great news, do you think,

for the consumers that rely on
the government to keep their food safe?

Yes. I'm a very strong consumer advocate.

And, you know, it's not just, you know,
Mindy Brashears, you know.

It's everyone in government.

They get into this...
you know, into this political realm.

And it doesn't seem like they really

are paying attention
to the people's business.

[INTERVIEWER] Have you made a decision
on the Marler petition yet?

No, we have not.

We are examining and assessing
the requests in the context

of our larger salmonella initiative.

Their goal in each of the petitions
is to do a better job

at reducing salmonella,
the strains that make people sick.

We have the same exact goal.

When Mike Taylor deemed
E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant,

he had complete authority to do that.

There's absolutely no reason that,

uh, Sandy Eskin couldn't do exactly
the same thing on her own right now.

[INTERVIEWER] She has the authority?

Absolutely. She has the authority to deem
salmonella an adulterant in chicken.

[INTERVIEWER] So why doesn't she?

Because, uh, the industry would...

And I should say this
knowing that it's chicken,

the industry would squawk, um,
and they would squawk loudly.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING LOUDLY]

I feel like the industry
hasn't held up their end of the bargain.

You can go to Europe

and buy packages that are labeled,

you know, "pathogen-free" there.

You can't get that in the United States.

[SARAH] They went back to the farm,

and they prioritized getting rid
of the worst types of salmonella

that make humans sick.

[BILL] They vaccinate chicken
against salmonella.

They sometimes eradicate flocks
that are contaminated with salmonella,

and they do those interventions
before they hit the slaughterhouse

because once they hit the slaughterhouse,
you know, it's not gonna help.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

So it's not like we can't do it.

Um, we just don't have
the political will yet to do it.

[WHIRRING]

When you look at what happened
to Stephanie Ingberg,

there's no question
we're not doing enough.

The government's not doing enough.
The industry's not doing enough.

[HEART MONITOR BEEPING]

[SCOTT] Stephanie, you know,
when we first found out

that first morning that she was back
that she may not live very much longer,

the fact that she didn't die, uh,
gave us hope. She was still with us.

She was still in a coma.
We couldn't communicate with her.

They... they didn't know
why she wasn't waking up.

And I think that's what led
to the question about the brain injury,

that she just wasn't waking up.

[HEART MONITOR BEEPING]

The priest came in saying a prayer.

And during that prayer,
her eyes just started to slit open.

And that was the first sign of waking up.

Yeah.

[SNIFFLES] Okay.

[STEPHANIE]
I specifically remember when I woke up,

everyone was surrounding me,
and everyone was very emotional around me.

I'm like, "What is the big deal?
Why is everyone so sad right now?"

"I don't understand."

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS]

So they were telling me
that I got, um, a strain of E. coli.

[PABLO] Okay.

Do you have any pain when I poke in there?

- No.
- [PABLO] No.

[STEPHANIE] And it can give you HUS,
which is a fatal kidney disease,

which is what I got.

[PABLO] This condition in her body was
like a nuclear bomb exploding inside you,

where it hits every single organ,

and then you have to get there
and pick up the pieces.

[PABLO IN SCENE] Okay, good,
we're gonna go to the left side now.

[STEPHANIE] It took me a long time
to rebuild my strength.

- [PABLO] Feels better, huh?
- [CHUCKLES]

My coma kind of knocked me out
for the hardest parts,

but I know there were moments

that my family and my doctors
didn't think I was gonna make it through,

which has been really hard on them.

And it's hard for me
to know that I put them through that pain.

Um...

But...

Yeah.

Control it all the way.
I'm gonna look at your knees as you go.

[STEPHANIE]
I had a lot of physical therapy,

a handful of outpatient dialysis visits.

I had doctor's appointments every day.

My mom couldn't go back to work
for months because she had to drive me

to probably two
or three doctor's appointments every day.

You know, I had a few goals
set in place that helped motivate me.

You know, I was graduating in May.

Being able to, um,
you know, walk at graduation

was one of my biggest goals
because at the time I couldn't walk.

[CROWD CHEERING]

[SNIFFLES]

And I'm crying,
but I achieved all those goals.

You know, I... I got to go to prom.
I got to walk at graduation...

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS]

...which, you know,
I feel like I'm pretty lucky

to be able to say I was able to do,

given the circumstances. [SNIFFLES]

You are still having
protein spillage in the urine.

That is unfortunately not normal.

And that's why we're using,
uh, this medication, Lisinopril.

Unfortunately, uh,

it's been four years now,
and I'm not seeing this going away.

[STEPHANIE] I'm kind of nervous
for what the future holds

with my kidney health and everything.
I try not to think about it.

I have to take a medication every day

to try to tighten the filters
in my kidneys.

I've talked to my nephrologist,
and there's a possibility

that I might have to get
a kidney transplant.

I mean, I might have to be
on dialysis for the rest of my life.

Like, you never wanna hear that.

[CHAIR CREAKING]

[SARAH] I think some people tend
to brush off foodborne illness.

Oh, it's a little stomach ache.

You know, it's some extra time
in the bathroom. It's no big deal.

[STEPHANIE] It is so much more
than that, you know.

It's comas and brain damage
and kidney trauma

and definitely should be taken seriously.

I ate a salad, and, you know,

now I have
long-term health effects from it.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[BRIAN] If you were to develop a list
of the highest-risk foods right now,

romaine lettuce would be near the top,
if not at the top.

[INTERVIEWER]
I'm curious if you eat romaine?

I don't.

[INTERVIEWER] Do you eat romaine?

[SPLUTTERS] I do steer clear of romaine
for the most part.

[LAUGHS]

I mean, I think about it
every time I eat it.

I, you know...
I've rolled the dice. [LAUGHS]

[INTERVIEWER] Are there any foods
that you both absolutely avoid?

Bagged... We don't buy
prepackaged bagged salads.

- Um...
- [JULIE] Yeah.

We kind of tend to shy away from romaine,
especially from Yuma or Salinas.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

[INTERVIEWER]
Has the LGMA response prevented

leafy greens outbreaks in your opinion?

LGMA has made a significant difference
in this industry.

[INTERVIEWER] Are there any studies
that document

the improvement of safety
after the implementation of LGMA?

[INHALES, EXHALES]

I don't know of any. [INHALES]

[INTERVIEWER] So you say
that you feel confident

that it's prevented certain outbreaks...

Absolutely.

[INTERVIEWER] I want to run through

some things that have gone down
the past five years.

So September 2017,
eight people sick from spinach.

November 2017, 67 people sick
from another unknown leafy green outbreak.

Then the following year in March,
a big one, 248 people, five dead.

April 2018, ten people.

October 2018,
three separate leafy green outbreaks,

sickening 135 people.

November, same thing, 167 people sick.

November 2019,
two more outbreaks that same year.

October 2020, 40 people.

This isn't a great track record, is it?

I think we have a lot to be proud of.

Certainly, every one of those
is... is a tragic incident

and the effect it had on those consumers.

But I am confident of the progress
that we have made through the LGMA

and the difference we have made
in the industry.

[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]

[CHRISTINE] One thing that jumped out
at me when reporting

on these romaine lettuce outbreaks

is how little the federal government

was doing to address them.

[MACHINE WHIRRING]

For many years, we've given
the responsibility to the businesses

and let them take responsibility,
and that's not working.

[INTERVIEWER] I'm being asked to wrap up.

What do you want the viewers
to know about this issue?

Well, I would like your viewers to know

that the US has among
the safest food systems in the world.

But we plan to work together
to create an even safer, more digital,

transparent, and sustainable food system
that's going to be good for consumers.

It'll be good for producers,
and it will be good for the planet.

I can't even tell you how many times

I have heard policymakers,
executives, leaders say the phrase,

"America has the safest food system
in the world."

But there seems
to have been this endless cycle

of failure and outbreaks
and recalls and illnesses and deaths.

You know, when I hear politicians say,

"We've got the safest food system
in the world,"

it's just... it's laughable. We don't have
the safest food system in the world.

I mean, these pathogens are controllable.
We're not controlling them.

We're in the United States.
We expect better.

And when the safety of our food supply
lets us down, it lets us down big-time.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS]

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]

[BRIAN] Right now, the government is not
doing enough to protect consumers.

And then consumers,
because the burden is often on them

when it gets to that level,

you know, they have to make sure that
they're taking the proper steps at home.

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS]

I would say number one food
on my list that I avoid is cantaloupe.

You cannot properly clean the outside,

and once you bring that knife through it,
it's too late.

And there's no kill step for cantaloupe.

Number two is sprouts.

Every other year,
there's a significant outbreak

where there's just no way to clean them.

I would say number three
would be bagged lettuce.

Your spring mix.
Your different salad mixes.

You don't necessarily know
how many heads of lettuce that came from.

Or do you even know
if it came from any one place?

[BILL] All the outbreaks
that I've been involved in

are triple-washed, bagged,
and shipped around the country.

You know, buy it in a whole head
and wash it yourself.

Control your own environment.

[SARAH] Today,
when we were ordering lunch,

I avoided everything that has
that little star on it on the menu

saying consumption of undercooked meat
can expose you to risk.

So there was
some raw fish they were serving,

and I, uh, took a pass on that one.

[TIMOTHY] You need to decide, "Am I
a person who loves raw oysters enough

that I want to take the risks
that are associated with raw oysters?"

[SARAH] I don't wanna be one
of those people who ends up losing a limb

because of, uh, you know, a night out.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

What are you having?

I'm gonna have a hamburger cooked
to 155 degrees internal temperature,

uh, french fries,

and that's it.

[SERVER] Okay. You got it.

[BURGERS SIZZLING]

[BEN] When you go to a restaurant
and you want to order a hamburger,

the best thing to do
is order to temperature,

because medium rare, rare, well-done,
those are all subjective.

You can't look at color
or whether juices run clear.

And if they say, "We don't have
a thermometer. We can't cook to that."

Then I'd order something else.

[BELL DINGS]

I think when I first started
doing this kind of work,

I kind of thought that,

you know, if you sued enough people
and you took enough money,

that that would change their behavior.

I just turned 64, you know,

and I just don't feel like
I've accomplished what I was hoping to do.

So...

'Cause I really did think, you know...
I really did think that, you know,

by the time I got to this stage that,

um, you know, this kind of thing
wouldn't be happening anymore.

But it happens

all the time.

♪ Buried, banging at your door ♪

♪ Don't hear a sound... ♪

After my son died,
I assumed that either the government,

you know, laws and policies,

or science and technology
would take care of this.

We wouldn't be dealing with food safety
like we're talking about in 1993.

♪ A rising steam... ♪

Regulators have the ability
to set the tone and to build a framework

that encourages industry
to do the right thing.

♪ On the devil's tree ♪

♪ I clutched a branch... ♪

If the public makes their voices heard

and puts pressure on their legislators,

let them know that this is not acceptable,

then I believe, yes,
legislators will act on their behalf.

♪ I walk alone ♪

♪ Beside myself... ♪

I think you just have to keep fighting
the battles that are in front of you,

and I still think
there are things more to do, um,

so I guess I got to get busy.

["FLESH AND BONE" BY BLACK MATH CONTINUES]

♪ Ah ♪

♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh ♪

♪ Ah ♪

♪ I walk alone ♪

♪ Beside myself ♪

♪ Nowhere to go ♪

♪ This bleeding heart ♪

♪ Is in my hands ♪

♪ I fell apart ♪

♪ My flesh and bone ♪

♪ My flesh and bone ♪

♪ Ah ♪

♪ My flesh and bone ♪

["FLESH AND BONE" BY BLACK MATH ENDS]

[SIZZLING]