Marler Clark LLPBill Marler is publisher of Food Safety News. He is an accomplished personal injury lawyer and national expert on foodborne illness litigation. He began representing victims of food-borne illness in 1993, when he represented Brianne Kiner, the most seriously injured survivor of the Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, resulting in her landmark $15.6 million settlement. Since that time, Bill and his law partners at Marler Clark have represented thousands of individuals in claims against food companies whose contaminated products have caused serious injury and death. His advocacy for better food regulation has led to invitations to address local, national, and international gatherings on food safety, including testimony before the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. In 1998, Bill shares his thoughts on foodborne illness outbreaks and litigation at his personal blog, Marler Blog, at http://www.marlerblog.com.
My Damn Day Job(s)You have to give a lot of credit to the folks at FSN - Dan, Helena, Suzanne and Zach (Zach is leaving soon - taking a job in Senator Patty Murray's office) - for making deadlines. Day in day out they, along with a team of freelancers and interns, have been producing a great product at Food...
Oops, I missed my self-imposed deadline to get to Suzanne this week's version of the "Publisher's Platform." Well, now it is 4:00 am on Mother's Day. No great excuse for being tardy with this piece except to say it was a very busy week. But, I did not forget Mother's Day gifts, and yesterday I helped shop (well, just paid...
Somehow Dan the editor and the several staff of Food Safety News convinced me while in Las Vegas (they may well have pictures) to write a few lines each week about my thoughts on what was going on at Food Safety News and/or my perspective on food safety over the week--forwards and backwards. It has been a busy week. An E....
The American Public Health Association celebrates National Public Health Week this week. The association wants to create "a place where everyone has access to health care and services, where we're celebrated for embracing healthy lifestyles, and our communities and neighborhoods make it easy for us to make healthy choices."Perhaps one way to celebrate National Public Health Week is for the...
Why did Whole Foods stop selling raw milk in California, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut?In January, I wrote "Risky Business - Why would a retailer like Whole Foods sell Raw Milk?" - perhaps Whole Foods actually paid attention? In the last two years I have spoken at various conferences of the financial risks--specifically to retailers and insurers--of selling raw milk. Over...
On Christmas Eve 2009, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that National Steak and Poultry was recalling 248,000 pounds of mechanically tenderized beef products contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.Within days of the recall announcement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that 21 people from 16 states had become infected with the...
Is "Made in the U.S.A." safe? Or, is this a trade war?When I was a kid in the early 1960s, I recall that "Made in Japan" meant cheap, but also sub-par in quality. Interesting how that has changed (compare Japanese made cars to those made in the U.S. for quality and sales).More recently, in my world we continue to hear...
IF there was an undersecretary for food safety this is what they should be doing...1. Tattoo on a body part that you use every day the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Mission Statement:The Food Safety and Inspection Service is the public health agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for ensuring that the nation's commercial supply of meat,...
Athol, MA-based Adams Farm Slaughterhouse, LLC., late Monday recalled approximately 2,574 pounds of beef that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).This recall was initiated after the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) confirmed a positive ground beef sample for E. coli O157:H7, which it collected during...
Food safety advocate and attorney Bill Marler, whose Seattle law firm, Marler Clark, has been contacted by victims of the E. coli outbreak traced to the National Steak and Poultry steak recall that has sickened twenty-one people in California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington, called on National Steak...
The Newark City Health Department confirmed on Wednesday that Salmonella is the cause of a Salmonella outbreak that sickened dozens and resulted in several hospitalizations following Holiday parties at Newark's Iberia Peninsula restaurant.According to Esmeralda Diaz Cameron, health department spokeswoman, city inspectors have been monitoring the restaurant's food preparation since the first reports of the outbreak, but have allowed the...
Over the last few years I have tried to bring some level of rationality to the debate over the consumption of raw milk. I first published a summary of the findings of a review of peer-reviewed literature on the topic of the "pros" of the consumption of raw milk on my blog. Several people from both sides of the raw...
There has been an ongoing back-and-forth response from the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) to my literature review of the pros and cons of drinking raw (unpasteurized) milk and a more recent series comparing the food safety track record of pasteurized and raw milk products.The WAPF had their annual meeting last weekend in the Chicago area, and hopefully they are...
Raw milk-related bacterial outbreaks have been an unfortunate and expanding part of business at Marler Clark. Although not an every year occurrence, and we do not get retained in all outbreaks, raw milk illnesses seem to be on the rise. And, because the proponents of the consumption of raw milk spend most of their time rejecting that the outbreaks -...
Raw milk, for its proponents, brings images of grandpa's idyllic farm - Bessie being milked as the cats meow around her legs. For the FDA and state and local health officials, raw milk brings up a different image: people sickened - mainly children - sickened by E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, Listeria or Salmonella.For me personally, raw milk generates mixed images....
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