Top 10 Infamous Food Poisoning Cases in History
#10: Peanut Corporation of America
The saga of one of America’s worst salmonella outbreaks began in 2008 but didn’t conclude legally until 2015. In the late 2000s, it came out that peanut products processed by the Peanut Corporation of America were contaminated, following decades of lax hygiene and poor sanitation, all without the knowledge of the FDA. It led to hundreds of cases of sickness all the way into the next year and 9 documented deaths. After just months the company filed for bankruptcy. Legal action continued for years and, in 2015, the CEO, Stewart Parnell, was given a hefty twenty-eight-year prison sentence when the courts uncovered that he knew about the contamination and continued moving product.
#9: Chinese Powdered Milk
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Though this outbreak primarily affected China, when the news of widespread contamination of baby formula and milk broke internationally, dozens of countries stopped imports from China to protect themselves. With over 200,000 incidents, including at least fifty infant deaths and thousands of hospitalizations, it was one of 2008’s biggest tragedies. While Sanlu Group, the affected company, was accused of ignoring warnings, it was never quite clear, who, exactly, was responsible or how so many products were contaminated with the chemical melamine. Countless companies were affected and even years after the scandal, people struggle to trust baby milk in China.
#8: US Listeriosis Outbreak
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In 2011, 28 US states were affected by a listeria outbreak causing over a hundred cases of listeriosis, a potentially fatal bacterial infection that can cause conditions like sepsis and meningitis. This time, it did prove fatal on at least 33 occasions. The outbreak was traced back to infected cantaloupes from Jensen Farms, in Colorado – more specifically, to the fact the two brothers running the family business at the time were using old, dirty equipment in their farming. Shockingly, the business actually passed an inspection less than a week before. There was one silver lining to this incident: it led to stricter food safety regulations in the US to prevent something like this from happening again.
#7: Bradford Sweets
The oldest food contamination incident on our list, the city of Bradford in England was ravaged by a lethal poisoning way back in 1858. It turned out that peppermint candies sold by a small market stall had somehow been mistakenly contaminated with arsenic, a notorious poison that should be nowhere near food. Hundreds were poisoned when upon consumption and 21 died. Contemporary sources suggest that people believed a contagion had struck, but police quickly traced those responsible. It all happened because sugar was so expensive at the time that candy had to be mixed with filler powder, or “daft”, and an assistant accidentally used the unlabelled arsenic instead.
#6: Bil Mar Foods
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Another listeria outbreak on American soil happened in 1998, when 35 million pounds of deli meat and hot dogs were recalled by Bil Mar’s parent company, Sara Lee, voluntarily. Ultimately, the problem was a large and increasingly decrepit refrigeration unit in the hot dog packing facility, that led to bacteria growth and dripped contaminated fluids into the room. Finally, after the problem was discovered by inspectors, they had to replace the unit and recall all the meat, but not before up to 20 people lost their lives and a handful miscarried. Sara Lee survived the listeria outbreak, despite it being one of the worst on record at the time, though the company eventually shut in 2012.
#5: German Sprouts
Despite this being one of the European continent’s biggest food contamination scandals, it took a while for the cause of the 2011 massive E. Coli outbreak to actually be identified. The cases, of which there were nearly four thousand, were localized in Germany but appeared in neighboring European countries as well. Initially, German authorities actually blamed cucumbers from Spain despite there being far fewer cases there. The real source was sprouts from one farm in particular, with contaminated seeds brought from Egypt. Hundreds were hospitalized, over 50 died, and the safety of fresh vegetables in the European Union was questioned for months afterward.
#4: Jalisco Cheese
More listeria, this time from cheese, in what was the United States’ deadliest food contamination incident at the time. This outbreak was traced to California in 1985 and just over fifty people lost their lives after consuming a specific type of soft cheese. The likely cause is that the person in charge of pasteurization (which is the vital process that destroys harmful bacteria in raw milk) wasn’t properly trained. It was thought that the milk was already contaminated before being made into other products. Still, the soft cheese was found to be the cause of harm in all the cases, and Jalisco’s president was hit with a bevy of charges for violating health and safety laws.
#3: Mad Cow Disease
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This massive outbreak affected the UK for years, beginning in the 1980s and not ending until the following decade. When the first case was identified in 1985, “mad cow disease” – officially “bovine spongiform encephalopathy” or BSE – was a new contagion. That’s why it took so long for the scale of the problem to become known. In the end, many beef products were banned and not only in Great Britain. Imported British beef was prohibited by the EU for years. The disease was found to cause illness in humans, leading to 178 deaths, and four million cows were also culled to contain the outbreak. Today, there are still fears of another disease outbreak in Britain.
#2: South African Listeria Crisis
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Listeria was once again found in food products in 2017, leading to a months-long crisis centered on one company in particular, Enterprise Foods, headquartered in South Africa. The reason the outbreak continued through to 2018 us because it actually took that long to trace it back to Enterprise Foods. In the world’s worst listeria outbreak, 216 people died and there were more than a thousand cases of illness. Enterprise’s parent company, Tiger Brands, was hit with a class-action lawsuit that same year for apparently knowing the food was contaminated and not doing anything about it. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few Dishonorable Mentions: Jack in the Box E. Coli Four Died When Jack in the Box Locations Nationwide Used E. Coli Contaminated Beef The Pont Saint-Esprit Poisoning The True Cause of This 1951 Outbreak Still Isn’t Known, but 7 People Died Pilgrim’s Pride Listeria Tainted Meat Meant 7 Americans Lost their Lives in the Northeast.
#1: Iraq Grain Disaster
In a horrific and entirely preventable episode of food poisoning, at least 459 people lost their lives in the early 1970s after eating contaminated grain. The grain was sent to Iraq in 1971 from Mexico and the States after being coated in a mercury-based fungicide. It was only ever intended to be used as seed to grow crops, not for consumption. But its warnings were only in English and Spanish, not Arabic. This is a rather upsetting case, given that, if the grain had had warnings in the correct language, many lives could have been saved.
