You know, we're told to eat healthy,
to sort of shop the perimeters of the grocery stores,
but I think what a lot of people don't realize
is... this also may be the riskiest areas.
You know, when I look around,
I probably see 10, 15 different items.
The product's been contaminated, or I sued companies on behalf of victims.
I've litigated plenty of cases of romaine lettuce.
Cut fruit, you know, countless outbreaks.
Cut cantaloupe.
Strawberries.
Caramel apples.
Tomatoes. Onions. Cookie dough.
The Similac infant formula.
Lucky Charms.
Chicken, you know, all these products are likely contaminated.
It starts to feel, though, like nothing is safe, and you can't eat. Right?
Yeah, I mean, you know, the industry, they send us these mixed messages.
They want us to buy their product,
but they ultimately don't want to be responsible... for what they produce.
Until I show up.
We have by far the safest food supply in the entire world.
The safest food supply in the world.
Let's remember one thing, we have the safest food supply
in the world right here in the US.
The FDA is investigating a hepatitis A outbreak,
possibly linked to organic fresh strawberries.
A multistate salmonella outbreak.
Health experts believe it is linked to some Jif peanut butter products.
The recalls come after at least two infant deaths
and several illnesses were potentially tied to formula.
A variety of brands of raw cake mix have infected 16 people,
one of which developed a type of kidney failure.
We talk about our food supply being the safest in the world,
and I believe it is.
People reported getting sick, being hospitalized for liver dysfunction,
and even having their gallbladders removed in some cases.
One in four pieces of raw chicken
is contaminated with salmonella.
The CDC announced another E. coli outbreak
is impacting romaine lettuce.
We have the safest food supply in the world.
Melons from a Colorado farm
are contaminated with what is called "listeria."
Every four minutes, someone is rushed to the hospital
because the food they ate made them sick.
We must continue to have the safest food supply in the world.
Safest food in the world.
Safest food supply in the world.
Safest food supply.
Safest food supply in the world.
We have the best, most efficient, safest food supply in the entire world.
By golly, we need to keep it that way.
Now, live at 11 o'clock.
The warning tonight from health officials here in the Northwest.
They say you should be on the lookout for a life-threatening illness
that's cropping up in our area.
Forty-five people are...
I actually remember this like it was yesterday.
There was an E. coli outbreak in the state of Washington
linked to something unknown.
The whole problem started
when a pediatric infectious-disease specialist called me and said,
"I've got 11 people who I've seen
in about 30 hours with E. coli O157."
I've never seen anything like this before.
And that was a big red light for me
that something bad was going on.
Seven new cases of E. coli poisoning were confirmed...
...E. coli patients remain hospitalized.
There are 21 kids in Western Washington hospitals.
Some experts say it's all about to get worse.
We had no idea that it would be
the largest foodborne outbreak in the United States.
I had just transferred from active duty.
I was a nuclear engineer on a submarine in the Navy.
I had a wife.
I had a nine-year-old son and a 16-month-old son at the time.
There had already been some news-- Some rumblings about an E. coli outbreak.
But it didn't mean anything to me. I never heard of E. coli.
"What's the worst that could happen?"
E. coli poisoning is a fairly new illness.
Not much is known about why the bacteria causes some people to get so sick.
Mr. Kobayashi, can you tell us, uh, the concern seems to be with secondary...
A big part of the outbreak was explaining what E. coli O157 was.
I felt like I was, uh, Tony Fauci for a couple of weeks.
The average incubation period for most, uh, people is three to four days.
The problem is that it can take up to nine days before a person becomes ill.
The mainstay of disease prevention, uh, for this type of illness
is thorough washing of hands, uh, either when...
E. coli is a general category of bacteria,
and they're natural inhabitants of everybody's intestines.
There are many, many different kinds of E. coli.
Most don't do any harm at all.
But there are certain ones, like E. coli O157,
that can make you real sick.
Within a couple of days,
it became clear that it was linked to Jack in the Box undercooked hamburgers.
More than 150 people have become ill after eating tainted hamburger meat
at Jack in the Box restaurants in Idaho and Washington State.
One child has died.
So one of the big problems with E. coli O157
is they produce what's called a Shiga toxin.
They get into the gut and then start pumping out this toxin,
and that toxin gets into the blood, and that will kill blood cells,
and then those lysed blood cells end up causing organ failure,
the kidneys to shut down.
And that's how kids die.
There are now more than 312 cases in our state alone.
And today there was another death.
So when the Jack in the Box case hit,
I was my fourth year out of law school.
I was 34 years old.
I got a phone call from a former client of mine
who had a friend whose daughter, Brianne Kiner, was in the hospital.
They asked me to go meet with them.
She'd been hospitalized for, you know, four and a half, five months by then.
There's so many mechanical things going on
and wires going into her and tubes going into her.
And I walked out of the room. I was crying.
Because it was just really difficult, you know?
It's difficult even today to think about, you know,
Brianne in that situation.
You know, she was... she was so vulnerable.
And she just ate a freakin' hamburger.