Joel Laramay lay in a hospital bed cold and shaking. The IV dripped down into his arm, filling his veins with life-saving hydration. After days of throwing up and not being able to hold down food, his stomach was throbbing from pain and hunger that he hadn’t been able to cure. He was so weak, he could only open his eyes halfway as he stared around the bleak, pale room. “I was scared to death,” he said. “I didn’t know what was wrong with me and I was alone expect for the nurse who kept giving me different drugs, none of which worked,” said Laramay. The culprit in this puzzle? Peanut butter.
This situation was brought on by a midnight snack. Laramay woke up late one night and decided to make his favorite childhood treat. Little did he know that it would lead to constant weakness, mind-numbing stomach pains, and throbbing headaches. “My head hurt so bad, it was like someone hitting it over and over again with a hammer,” said Laramay. It was days until he found out what was wrong with him.
On February 14, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and ConAgra Foods Inc. recalled all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter with a product code beginning with “2111” due to salmonella contamination. Laramay, a 21-year-old Daemen College student, was one of the reported 300 people in 39 states affected by the bacteria.
According to the FDA, the first person became ill in August of 2006. Because the reason for foodborne illnesses can be tough to identify, it took many case control and disease studies for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to confirm that Peter Pan peanut butter was the cause of the illness. They don’t know for certain yet what caused the infection, but the FDA is collecting samples from the manufacturing plant and inspecting the plant for any follow up actions. The FDA and CDC are going to be working closely with state health officials in order to catch any new cases.
Salmonella is a bacterium that sometimes contaminates food and can cause diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, headache, nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting. “It felt like someone was sucking the life out of me and my stomach felt like someone was ripping it wide open,” said Laramay. “I was constantly vomiting after everything I ate, it looked just like peanut butter.” The disease normally clears up within five to seven days without treatment.
According to Lola Russell of the CDC, the organization doesn’t know what caused the poisoning because that is the FDA’s responsibility. “Salmonella is usually found in meat and things like that, but this case is unique because this is the first time it has ever occurred in peanut butter,” said Russell. “Because there is a lot involved in making peanut butter it is hard to identify right away the cause for the contamination.”
According to the CDC, about 20 percent of all people who were ill in the United States were hospitalized. Laramay was rushed to the hospital on February 13, 2007. He hadn’t been able to hold food down for several days and could barely get out of bed. “I was so weak I could hardly move my head or even walk a few feet without passing out,” said Laramay, “At first I thought it was a stomach bug from bad Wendy’s until I started puking even when I had nothing in my stomach, to the point where all that came up was green bile.”
Laramay was discharged six hours later and was diagnosed with gastritis, an illness caused by viral or bacterial infections in the stomach. However, the exhausting escapade wasn’t over yet.
Two days later, Laramay was attempting to relax at home and flipped on the news while eating his new recovery diet of apple juice and Jello. The top story on the news that night happened to be the peanut butter recall. Laramay ran to check his stock of peanut butter, and sure enough the product code read “2111,” the salmonella infected batch. “I was rather pissed off that my suffering was caused by such an unpredictable food and I had three jars,” said Laramay, “I wanted to hold ConAgra responsible for my suffering.”
ConAgra told customers to discard the peanut butter, but send in the lids for a full refund. Local supermarkets, like Tops, were giving refunds to people that brought the peanut butter back. “We had a couple jars of the peanut butter,” said Lee Sobieski, a Tops manager, “we had about 40 to 50 people return it.” When they found out they had to take all the jars of Peter Pan off of the shelves, the distributors had to come back to the store and collect all the jars, according to Sobieski. “It will probably cost this store alone about $100 to $200 when all is said and done,” remarked Sobieski. Tops wasn’t told about the recall from any higher authority—word got to the store from the newscasts.
Many are not happy about only receiving a refund for the peanut butter, including Laramay. “I think they should be offering a more significant retribution than handing out two dollar peanut butter. The people who are returning them instead of taking a stand are stupid. Just think of all the time us infected people wasted, forced to lie in bed. Is it only worth a coupon for free peanut butter?”
Will the public ever trust their favorite snack again? “I think that Peter Pan will always be affected by this, but not peanut butter in general,” said Sobieski. “It hasn’t slowed down peanut butter sales, people are just buying other brands, like Skippy and Jiff.” There are still some, like Laramay, who will refuse to support peanut butter. Laramay remarked, “I am not taking the risk of getting deathly ill like that ever again over any brand of peanut butter, especially from ones whose mascot is a dude in a green dress.”
