Vt. mother takes salmonella testimony to Capitol Hill

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(Host) A salmonella outbreak linked to peanuts recently hit South Burlington. A seven-year-old boy was hospitalized for several days as a result. The boy’s mother traveled to Capitol Hill today to tell the Senate Agriculture Committee about her family’s ordeal.

Matt Laslo reports from Washington.

(Laslo) At first Gabrielle Meunier just thought her son had the flu; she had no idea his sickness came from tainted peanut butter crackers that were still in her house.

(Meunier) "After consulting with our pediatrician we limited his food and made sure he got plenty of fluids. But just two days later Christopher’s health deteriorated dramatically. He became violently ill and was in tremendous pain – a pain no child should ever experience."

(Laslo) Meunier’s testimony was embraced by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy. He says he wants to send a signal to all food processors by holding the heads of the Peanut Corporation of America personally accountable.

(Leahy) "I’d like to see some people go to jail."

(Laslo) The outbreak lasted about four months before officials found Georgia peanut butter was the culprit. Across the U-S eight people died and over five hundred people got sick. Ali Khan from the Center for Disease Control told the committee the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration need more personnel and better technologies.

(Kahn) “We need new tools at the local, state, and national level to investigate these outbreaks."

(Laslo) But Meunier says government officials already have the tools, like the Internet. She says they just aren’t using them.

(Meunier) "In this age of technology I don’t understand why victims could not be given access to one another, in a secure website, in a chat room, and talk to one another and possibly solve the question of which foods poisoned them."

(Laslo) Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss agreed with Meunier’s (Moon-yay’s) straight forward recommendations.

(Chambliss) "They are practical and they are commonsensical – things that simply make almost too much sense, that the bureaucracy has a difficult time comprehending."

(Laslo) It came out in the hearing that the FDA doesn’t even have the power to demand recalls for tainted foods. Officials also told a stunned panel that it currently takes a minimum of six weeks to identify and address a nationwide salmonella outbreak. Senators offered no hints as to what legislation they may offer, but all of them were receptive to the solutions offered by South Burlington’s Gabrielle Meunier.

From Capitol News Connection, I’m Matt Laslo for VPR News.

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