Federal health officials say the Blakely peanut plant at the center of the salmonella outbreak had internal data that showed salmonella bacteria as far back as 2007. Plant officials were not required by law to share the information. Now state lawmakers want to change that.
Federal officials apparently evoked homeland security law in order to get access to internal plant documents at the Peanut Corporation of America Blakely facility. They revealed that routing quick tests on several occasions showed the presence of salmonella bacteria. Oscar Garrison with the Georgia Department of agriculture says current law does not require companies to share such information with state investigators.
"Companies want to do testing and we don’t want to discourage internal testing. But if they do the testing, which we won't require them to do, then they need to make those results available to us- particularly when they find excessive problems."
As a result, state lawmakers are currently drafting a bill that would require companies to hand over internal test results to public inspectors. Meanwhile FDA officials have left the plant in blakely and moved on to the companies Virginia.
