Food safety lawyer, author discuss illness, legislation

 

 

PULLMAN, Wash. – If you’ve worried about pink slime in your hamburger, you don’t know the half of it.

 

Jeff Benedict, author of the book “Poisoned: The True Story of the Deadly E. Coli Outbreak That Changed the Way Americans Eat,” rarely eats hamburger, but that’s not the only food on his restricted list.

 

Benedict was on the WSU Pullman campus Monday with Seattle attorney Bill Marler, a 1982 graduate of WSU, who is the top food-borne illness litigator in the world and a key figure in “Poisoned.” Benedict and Marler talked about food safety at a noon discussion organized by the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service and an evening appearance hosted by the University College.

 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, food-borne illnesses in the United States cause an estimated 48 million cases each year, including 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. The list of foods that caused multistate illness or death in 2011 includes cantaloupes, ground turkey, papayas and sprouts.

 

In his 2011 book, Benedict chronicled the story of Marler’s fight to secure a settlement for his client Brianna Kiner – a 9-year-old girl who suffered serious and life-altering injuries after eating a hamburger at a Jack in the Box restaurant in Redmond, Wash., in 1993 that was contaminated with the E. coli bacteria. The book isn’t a courtroom drama – the case never went to trial – but it reads like a thriller nevertheless.

At the book signing after the lecture, Gavin Nhieu, 20, a junior in microbiology and biochemistry, said he was riveted by the story: “It was really hard to put it down.”

 
Even though he had studied food-borne viruses in some of his earlier classes, he said, this book brought the dangers home to him in a different way. For one thing, he also eats at Jack in the Box. For another, the book focuses on the people involved – the lawyers, doctors, epidemiologists, victims and families.

 
Nhieu, who plans to become a family practice physician, said the book made him think about food and food safety differently.

 

And that’s the point, said Mary Sanchez Lanier, an associate dean of University College who is teaching a course on virology this semester. She put “Poisoned” on her required reading list, along with “The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story” about an ebola virus outbreak, because both books help students understand how infectious disease affects people’s lives.

 

“From the president on down people are making decisions based on their understanding of science,” she said. And those decisions have consequences.

 

There are plenty of examples where emotions or beliefs overwhelm or distort the science, with discouraging results, she said. But in “Poisoned” the science holds its own, even as those involved grapple with legal, medical, ethical and practical issues.

 

“It’s the real world of science,” she said.

 
During their talk, Marler gave a brief history of food safety law in the United States, starting with legislation passed in 1906 following the publication of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” right up to the Food Safety and Modernization Act, which received bipartisan support and was signed by President Barack Obama in January 2011. The legislation attempts to provide structure and oversight for a food safety system that focuses on prevention and a coordinated, rapid response, rather than reacting after an outbreak has occurred.

 

The legislation was the most significant food safety legislation passed in the last 70 years, Marler said, but it has been largely ineffective because no money was appropriated for monitoring and enforcement. Marler, who was a strong advocate for the legislation, said he hasn’t given up.

 

“‘Poisoned’ isn’t just about Jack in the Box,” he said. “It’s about why it’s a good idea as a society that we find a way to make food safe.”

Benedict, a professor of English at Southern Virginia University, is the author of numerous non-fiction books, many of them based on legal issues. For “Poisoned,” he said, he knew he needed a central character who could carry the narrative and draw people to the story.

“When you sit down and read, you want to be taken on a journey,” he said. The first time he met Marler in person Marler, picked him up at the ferry landing on Bainbridge Island in a red Volkswagen with plates that read “e coli.” “I figured right there he’s probably going to be a character,” he said.

Benedict said he enjoyed telling a story that goes against easy stereotypes. In this story the trial lawyer wasn’t just after money and the corporate executives weren’t amoral crooks. “It’s not that simple,” he said.

At the conclusion of the talk, Marler was given a crimson WSU flag as part of the WSU Campaign donor recognition program. University College Dean Mary Wack thanked Marler for the many ways he has supported WSU, including his service as a WSU Regent from 1998 to 2004, but also his ongoing support since then. In 2010 when WSU’s Common Reading selection was “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” by Michael Pollan, Marler funded Pollan’s visit to WSU Pullman campus. This year Marler’s lawfirm, MarlerClark, donated nearly 400 copies of “Poisoned” for use by WSU students.