An update on our warning about products containing peanut butter:

Five hundred people have now become ill after eating products containing peanut butter contaminated with salmonella–including more than 100 children under the age of five. And, it now turns out, the plant that produced the peanut butter knew it had a salmonella problem and went on selling the contaminated products anyway. According to a report posted on the internet by lawyer Bill Marler, the company’s own tests showed salmonella contamination on twelve instances in 2007 and 2008. In each case, “after the firm retested the product and received a negative status, the product was shipped in interstate commerce.”

In other words, the company simply retested the same product until it happened to come up clean. Then they shipped it. That’s illegal. And criminal.

An investigation of the Peanut Corporation plant, which is located in Blakely, Georgia, turned up walls and ceilings blackened with mold, rust residue that could make its way into food items, and openings in the walls big enough for rodents to enter, according to the New York Times.

By now, more than 100 brands of peanut-butter containing foods have been recalled as a result of the outbreak. For more, check out “Peanut butter goodies gone bad.”

Tags: peanut butter, salmonella