Personal Injury Law

Is Twitter the New FDA? Should it be?

By Bill Marler

Last night I posted 'Romaine Lettuce E. coli O145 Outbreak - The FDA to us – ‘You can't handle the truth!'' In a not too subtle way I kept asking the question, why is the FDA not disclosing who 'The Yuma Farm' is?

I mean, seriously, Freshway disclosed that they received romaine lettuce from Andrew Smith. Andrew Smith will eventually finger the grower. Hell, everyone in the industry and the FDA know who the grower is, and have for weeks. So, I decided to try something this morning.  I posted on Twitter:

I will donate $5,000 to charity if someone names the farm that caused the Romaine Lettuce E. coli O145 outbreak before the FDA does.

With no response, I later posted:

OK, I will donate $10,000 to charity if someone names the farm that caused Romaine Lettuce E. coli O145 outbreak before FDA does.

Guess, what? I got two responses. Both identified the D'Arrigo Brothers as 'The Yuma Farm.' I am now splitting the donation to charity to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Steinbeck Center in Salinas. I am confident that my sources would know if 'The Yuma Farm' is in fact the D'Arrigo Brothers, but I certainly would like to hear it from the FDA.

Interesting side note, while I was searching for 'The Yuma Farm,' I appear to have stumbled into another lettuce outbreak - as yet unreported. It seems that even industry leader Fresh Express is not immune from bacterial problems – this one Salmonella – that has sickened several in the upper mid-west. Go figure. I wonder why no company recall? No FDA announcement?

I guess we need to keep tuned to Twitter?

Full post as published by Marler Blog on May 18, 2010 (boomark / email).