Pritzker Olsen Clients Fight for Food Safety
The families of two Salmonella victims that Pritzker Olsen attorneys represented are now pursuing food safety causes on a national scale by urging U.S. Senate members to pass Senate Bill 510, the “FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.” Nellie Napier of Ohio and Shirley Almer of Minnesota both died in a peanut butter Salmonella outbreak last year that sickened more than 700 people and killed nine.
Members of the Almer and Napier families are joining a group of 27 in writing letters to U.S. Senators, urging them to pass the bill, which is co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. A version of the food safety bill has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and would be combined with the Senate bill if the Senate bill passes. The proposed food safety legislation would give the FDA more control over issuing recalls and toughen requirements on food producers to show test results of contaminated food. Food poisoning attorney Fred Pritzker commends the efforts of the policymakers who support this vital food safety reform.
“This key legislation can’t get passed soon enough,” Pritzker says. “This massive outbreak demonstrated the many, many vulnerabilities in our broken food safety system and hopefully the Senate will recognize and act upon that.”
Pritzker Olsen attorneys are involved in wrongful death food poisoning litigation on behalf of these two women as well as Minnesota victim Salmonella outbreak victim, Doris Flatgard. The lawsuit was filed in January 2009 against Ohio-based King Nut Companies and its supplier, Virginia-based Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).
The families would like to see the Senate pass the bill by Valentine’s day, said Nellie’s son Randy Napier.
“We’re talking to senators, telling them our story with our mother, and trying to get this food safety bill passed,” he told The Gazette, a newspaper from Medina County, Ohio.
Shirley’s son Jeffrey Almer also testified before a congressional committee on food safety reform in February 2009.
“Shirley Almer had a lot of Sisu; which is what Finnish people call a person with spunk, fortitude and determination. That is why her death on December 21, 2008—from of all things, Salmonella-contaminated peanut butter—came as such a shock to our family,” Jeffrey said.
