U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel for the Northern District of Illinois signed a consent decree of permanent injunction against Wholesome Soy Products and their owners. The owners, Paul and Julia Trinh, signed the document on April 5, 2015. The decree prevents them from distributing adulterated mung bean and soybean sprouts. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer of the Justice Department's Civil Division said in a statement, "we must work to ensure that the food we buy from store shelves is safe and produced under sanitary conditions. The Department of Justice will continue to work with our partners at FDA to accomplish that goal." Wholesome Soy products are linked to a deadly Listeria monocytogenes outbreak this past fall. Five people were sickened, and two … [Read more...]
Feds Sue Wholesome Soy in Wake of Deadly Listeria Outbreak
In the wake of a deadly Listeria outbreak, the federal government has filed a lawsuit against Wholesome Soy Products Inc. The suit, filed April 3 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, seeks to enjoin Wholesome Soy from distributing food in the future. Wholesome Soy products killed two people and sickened three others in 2014. The company has not been making or distributing food since agreeing to a November 7 request by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to halt production. But the complaint states the government believes that Wholesome Soy poses a future threat of producing foods that are adulterated if they are not restrained From June to August 2014, five people in Illinois and Michigan developed listeriosis, two of them died. During interviews, two of the … [Read more...]
Listeria Bean Sprout Outbreaks in 2008, 2014 Have Similar Story
The Wholesome Soy bean sprout Listeria outbreak in 2014 has a similar story to the first reported Listeria bean sprout outbreak in 2008. Both were discovered by routine testing. The 2008 outbreak included 20 cases reported between March 2008 and March 2009. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) tests showed all 20 patients were sickened by the same strain. The cases were reported from seven states: CA (1), MA(6), NY(6), NJ(4), MD(1), ME(1) and NH(1). The case patients ranged in age range from 20 to 89. Sixty five percent were female, 21 percent were pregnant at the time of infection. All of them were hospitalized. The source of the infections was unknown until the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets found Listeria in sample of alfalfa sprouts and uploaded it to … [Read more...]
