{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://delauro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/delauro-blumenthal-refer-boars-head-doj-responsibility-listeria", "DELAURO & BLUMENTHAL REFER BOAR\u2019S HEAD TO DOJ FOR RESPONSIBILITY IN LISTERIA OUTBREAK, CALL ON USDA TO BOLSTER OVERSIGHT", "2024-09-26", "2024", "2024-09", "Democrat", "House", "CT", "Rosa L. DeLauro", "D000216", "delauro.house.gov", "delauro", "https://delauro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to hold Boar\u2019s Head Provisions Company, Inc. (Boar\u2019s Head) accountable for the Listeria outbreak linked to liverwurst deli meat produced at their Jarratt, Virginia plant. In a letter to USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Blumenthal urged USDA to work closely with the DOJ to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Boar\u2019s Head for their responsibility in the outbreak, which has caused 10 deaths and dozens of hospitalizations across the country. Blumenthal and DeLauro also urged USDA to strengthen its Listeria prevention protocols and investigate other Boar\u2019s Head locations for safety violations.\n\n\u201cThe time for action is long overdue, and we urge your agencies to work together to seek immediate justice for impacted consumers and to prevent this from happening again,\u201d wrote DeLauro and Blumenthal.\n\n\u201cMoving forward, it is critical that the agency take this matter seriously and take the necessary steps to address the concerns raised by this outbreak. That is why we urge USDA to work closely with the DOJ to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Boar\u2019s Head for their responsibility in this crisis,\u201d DeLauro and Blumenthal continued.\n\nBlumenthal and DeLauro also called on USDA to enhance its oversight of our food supply, \u201cWe also urge the agency to initiate reforms to prevent similar situations from recurring at other facilities. In particular, the agency should revisit its regulations requiring establishments to test for Listeria in the processing environment and consider ways to strengthen those requirements, including revisiting the agency\u2019s 2000 proposed rule requiring minimum sampling for Listeria on food contact surfaces.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe cannot let large corporations get away with endangering public health, it is imperative that we hold food companies to the highest standards so that Americans can feel safe shopping for groceries and feeding their families. Boar\u2019s Head must be held accountable, those impacted by this crisis deserve more than an apology, they deserve justice,\u201d DeLauro and Blumenthal concluded.\n\nThe full text of the letter is below and available here.\n\nWe write to urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to hold Boar\u2019s Head Provisions Company, Inc. (Boar\u2019s Head) accountable for the Listeria outbreak linked to liverwurst deli meat produced at their Jarratt, Virginia plant that has caused 10 deaths and 59 hospitalizations across 19 states, and to take immediate action to ensure that the failures responsible for this tragedy are not repeated. The New York Times recently reported that USDA inspectors warned that conditions at the Boar\u2019s Head plant posed an \u201cimminent threat to public health\u201d as early as 2022, and additional records show the alarming conditions continued in the years that followed. It is unacceptable that Boar\u2019s Head did not take sufficient action to rectify these conditions that resulted in repeated violations for similar issues. The time for action is long overdue, and we urge your agencies to work together to seek immediate justice for impacted consumers and to prevent this from happening again.\n\nAccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Listeria monocytogenes is a dangerous bacterium that can be especially harmful for pregnant women, individuals over the age of 65, and those who have a weakened immune system. A Listeria infection can be life threatening. That is why in 1989, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) at USDA declared Listeria monocytogenes an adulterant and established a zero-tolerance policy for the bacteria\u2019s presence in any product intended to be \u201cready to eat\u201d without additional cooking. The USDA also established clear requirements for sanitation to ensure that the bacteria does not contaminate such products and provided for escalating enforcement for violations of such rules, including the ability and discretion to shut down production. That is why it is baffling that inspectors at the Jarratt plant documented 84 noncompliances from June 2023 through this August, many of which indicated significant safety risks, and the agency failed to recognize the blatant pattern of violations or escalate to enforcement when Boar\u2019s Head safety officials failed to take adequate corrective actions necessary to prevent further risks.\n\nIt is painfully clear that by choosing not to aggressively ensure that safety standards were being followed, the USDA failed to uphold its congressional mandate. The agency allowed Boar\u2019s Head to put profits over people by producing what its fiduciaries surely knew were products that were at a high risk of adulteration due to the horrific conditions at the Jarratt plant. Years of inadequate response have led to safety conditions within the plant that are impossible to remedy easily, and as a result, Boar\u2019s Head recently decided to indefinitely shut down the plant, potentially leaving hundreds of workers in a small town unemployed.\n\nMoving forward, it is critical that the agency take this matter seriously and take the necessary steps to address the concerns raised by this outbreak. That is why we urge USDA to work closely with the DOJ to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Boar\u2019s Head for their responsibility in this crisis. If criminal charges lead to a consent decree, we urge the agency to include civil penalties for future infractions, enhanced sampling of products and contact surfaces for Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria species, enhanced sanitation commitments from Boar\u2019s Head, third party audits, additional risk-based USDA testing, and any additional remedies the agency deems necessary to ensure strict oversight and accountability.\n\nWe also urge the agency to initiate reforms to prevent similar situations from recurring at other facilities. In particular, the agency should revisit its regulations requiring establishments to test for Listeria in the processing environment and consider ways to strengthen those requirements, including revisiting the agency\u2019s 2000 proposed rule requiring minimum sampling for Listeria on food contact surfaces. The agency should also explore measures such as increased agency testing for Listeria, mandatory final product testing by establishments, reporting requirements for establishments that detect Listeria monocytogenes in final products, enhanced communication to escalate issues identified by inspectional staff, and automatic triggers to escalate regulatory penalties against establishments that, like Boar\u2019s Head, demonstrate a pattern of non-compliance with basic sanitation protocols. In this particular case, the USDA should also consider conducting vigorous inspections of all Boar\u2019s Head facilities to ensure that the practices at the Jarratt plant have not been replicated at other locations.\n\nWe cannot let large corporations get away with endangering public health, it is imperative that we hold food companies to the highest standards so that Americans can feel safe shopping for groceries and feeding their families. Boar\u2019s Head must be held accountable, those impacted by this crisis deserve more than an apology, they deserve justice.\n\nThank you for your attention to this matter. We look forward to working with you.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:43:57Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://delauro.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/delauro-blumenthal-refer-boars-head-doj-responsibility-listeria"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9500398300588131, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}