Plainview Peanut Plant Whistleblower Wants More Done
By: Danielle Todesco
Updated: March 2, 2009
Two weeks after a former assistant manager at the Plainview peanut plant spoke out about the horrible conditions there...he says there still isn't enough being done.
Kenneth Kendrick says he pushed for months to bring the plant to the forefront. Last month, the Peanut Corporation of America and its owner Stewart Parnell were brought before Congress, along with several of the victims' families to tell their story.
"I saw the victims' families appearing before Congress. We did this two years ago with ConAgra when that happened with the peanut butter before and nothing has changed. What are we going to do this time?"
The national toll is now more than 660 sick and 9 dead from the outbreak. Kendrick follows every move on the issue, hoping to see some action in Congress. But he says nothing is being done.
"It's like we're supposed to wait for the next big disaster to happen and that's not fair to the families of those who have died and been sick."
A former assistant manager at the plant for four months in 2006, he says the main problem risking contamination then was a leaky roof dripping bird feces into the plant. Recent inspections have also shown rats and droppings throughout the building. Now, he says things need to change. His ideas: A hotline for workers to anonymously report issues in processing plants and more FDS and state health regulators better trained for more detailed inspections.
"They can't know everything about every food product from ice machines, to peanuts, to building codes and this one I think a lot of what the problem may have boiled down to was roof leaks."
