Bill Marler calls on importers of Salmonella tainted Cantaloupe to pay medical bills of Outbreak Victims

Bill Marler, food safety advocate and foodborne attorney since 1993, whose Seattle law firm, Marler Clark’s work was recently profiled in the Netflix documentary “Poisoned,” The Dirty Truth about your Food, is calling on the importers of Salmonella-tainted cantaloupes to pay the medical bills of the victims of the outbreak in the United States and Canada.

Retailers and wholesalers have recalled cantaloupes from Crown Jewels Produce in boxes labeled “Malachita/Z Farms” or from Sofia Produce doing business as TruFresh in boxes labeled “Malichita” or “Rudy”, or from Pacific Trellis in corrugated cartons with certain lot codes.

In the United States as of November 24, 99 people infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Sundsvall have been reported from 32 states. Arkansas (1), Arizona (7), California (1), Colorado (2), Georgia (3), Iowa (5), Illinois (4), Indiana (2), Kentucky (5), Massachusetts (1), Maryland (1), Michigan (1), Minnesota (13), Missouri (9), Mississippi (1), North Carolina (2), Nebraska (4), New Jersey (1), Nevada (2), New York (1), Ohio (8), Oklahoma (1), Oregon (1), Pennsylvania (1), Rhode Island (1), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (4), Texas (3), Utah (1), Virginia (1), Washington (1) and Wisconsin (8). Illnesses started on dates ranging from October 17, 2023, to November 10, 2023. Of 77 people with information available, 45 have been hospitalized. Two deaths have been reported from Minnesota.  Age of ill ranges from less than 1 to 100 years of age. 

In Canada as of November 24, there have been 63 laboratory-confirmed cases of Salmonella Soahanina, Sundsvall and Oranienburg illness linked to this outbreak in the following provinces: British Columbia (12), Ontario (12), Quebec (35), Prince Edward Island (2) and Newfoundland and Labrador (2).  Individuals became sick between mid-October and mid-November 2023. Seventeen individuals have been hospitalized. One death has been reported. Individuals who became ill are between 0 to 100 years of age.

“Unfortunately, those numbers will likely rise in the coming week,”  Marler said. “The cost of treating victims of Salmonella infections can run in the tens of thousands of dollars, or in a severe case, even in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. These families need these companies to do more than promise to cooperate in the investigation into this outbreak. They need to know that these companies intend to fulfill their corporate responsibility by looking out for their customers,” added Marler.

Marler noted that over the last two decades in other outbreak-situations, companies such as Chi-Chi’s, Dole, Jack in the Box, Conagra, Odwalla and Sheetz advanced medical costs for outbreak victims whose illnesses were traced to their food products.

Since the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak in 1993, where Bill recovered $15,600,000 for one of its victims, Bill has represented thousands of E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, Hepatitis A and other foodborne illness victims against the largest corporations in the US and around the world. Total recoveries on behalf of victims are more than $850,000,000. Dozens of times a year Bill speaks to industry and government throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, China and Australia on why it is important to prevent foodborne illnesses.  He is also a frequent commentator on food litigation and food safety on Marler Blog. Bill is also the publisher of Food Safety News.

Republished with permission from Bill Marler and Marler Clark. Copyright (c) Marler Clark LLP, PS. All rights reserved.