As you're no doubt aware by now, scores of peanut butter products were recalled last month in the wake of hundreds of salmonella poisoning reports, including eight deaths. So when I asked my son who is the principal scientist for a major pharmaceutical co. how this sort of thing could happen, he offered several possible scenarios…
If a lab finds a contaminated sample, the food company can send it to another lab that has less rigorous criteria
If a lab finds a contaminated sample, the food company can send another sample from another part of the batch, hoping for uneven distribution of the contamination
If a lab finds a contaminated sample, the food company can combine the sample with a sample that's known to be uncontaminated, lowering contamination levels
A food company can purposely mislead a lab with a confusing change of lot numbers
A large food company that requires a high volume of lab work might threaten to use another lab
What a great FDA
But that's just one part of the picture. And it doesn't end with peanut butter.