Damn!!! This is just wrong

Muslim businessman in Texas sells $36 million worth of mislabeled and potentially dangerous food to U.S. military
He knew what he was doing: "American Grocers shipped so much stale merchandise that the company bought paint solvent by the barrel and set up assembly lines to wipe out the old labels to make room for the phony dates." So what was his intent? Just to make a profit? Or to cripple the military in Iraq as well? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? After all, we have seen cases like this before, although details remain elusive.

"Texas businessman settles military food mislabeling case for $15 million," by P.J. Huffstutter and Andrew Blankstein for the Los Angeles Times, November 20 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):

A Texas businessman has agreed to pay $15 million to settle federal allegations that he and his company cheated the government by selling old and potentially dangerous food to the U.S. military to supply combat troops serving in Iraq and elsewhere.
Prosecutors had alleged that Samir Mahmoud Itani and his company American Grocers Ltd. profited from the Middle East conflict by ripping off taxpayers and shortchanging U.S. soldiers in the mess hall. According to the government, Itani's firm bought deeply discounted products whose freshness dates had expired or were nearing expiration. His workers then altered those dates and resold those supplies to the government for hefty markups, prosecutors alleged.

On Friday, Department of Justice officials announced that Itani, his wife, Suzanne, his brother Ziad and the company agreed to pay the penalty to settle the false-claim charges in this federal whistle-blower case.

Suzanne Itani, chief executive of American Grocers, said in a statement that the company denied any wrongdoing and that the settlement was a way to avoid lengthy litigation. She said that the company was "proud of the service and products it delivers to its customers" and that company officials "look forward to returning our full attention to serving our many loyal customers throughout the world."

Samir Itani could not be reached for comment. According to property records, he owns a $2.2-million, 9,931-square-foot mansion with two elevators in an upscale Houston neighborhood.

Prosecutors said that Samir Itani, 51, and a tightknit group of family and business acquaintances sold at least $36 million worth of mislabeled food products to the government. [...]

As the U.S. military presence grew in the Middle East, Itani's business boomed. American Grocers shipped so much stale merchandise that the company bought paint solvent by the barrel and set up assembly lines to wipe out the old labels to make room for the phony dates, according to the complaint.

The Justice Department did not say whether any troops were sickened by the food supplied by American Grocers, or whether any of the food companies that sold items to Itani knew of any wrongdoing.

Posted by Robert on November 27, 2010 6:44 AM | 26 Comments
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Yuck and double yuck.

We've bought supposedly "day old" bread from a local store only to find out it was molded and inedible. I suspect this sort of thing goes on all the time - Samir Itani just got caught.

In the not-too-distant future, I suspect we'll find more and more people attempting to grow their own food just to be certain of the source.

Sad.

It would stop if the stinking politicians, judges, and lawyers would stop fighting for the crooks instead of upholding the laws and if the juries would do their jobs and not feel sorry for the criminals.

Kind of story that makes you mad.
About the date thing, I don't buy any bread or milk, etc without checking the date. There is almost always older bread in front of fresher bread in the grocery store. I reach to the back of the shelf and look at the dates. Why pay the same price for a loaf of bread that's 4-5 days older? In my opinion, any loaf of bread that's been sitting there for over 2 days should be discounted!

I have read several articles about Harvey Washington Wiley... a chemist who was probably the "Father of the FDA".

Among other things, he was concerned about preservatives in food and had a poison squad of dedicated employees that knowingly ate high quantities of bad stuff that was being used at the time.

From http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2011/03/bring_back_the_poison_squad.html

Quote :

At the time when Wiley began his work with the poison squad, the powerful food industry had managed to derail every attempt to regulate its products. No labeling requirements existed, no safety tests, no monitoring of additives, no good information on the risks. Determined to change this, Wiley persuaded Congress in 1902 to fund what he called "hygienic table trials" of commercial food products.

His plan was simple from the beginning. He'd build a test kitchen and dining room in the basement of the Agriculture Department building on Independence Avenue. Then he'd serve poisoned food to a group of young volunteers. Wiley chose men in their 20s because he thought they were sturdy enough to withstand the diet he had in mind.

The first 12 members of the squad were all department employees who had agreed to eat their meals in Wiley's kitchen over a span of six months. The menus were set so that each day's food would include exactly one suspect ingredient. Squad members never knew what possible poison they were eating. Still, they all signed waivers absolving the government of liability for possible health impacts.

It helped that the meals served from that tidy kitchen were guaranteed excellent—a typical meal might be roast chicken, braised beef, buttered asparagus, hot rolls, and fresh fruit pies with coffee and cream. The only catch was that one of those dishes—and the squad members never knew which—would be laced with a test substance. These added ingredients were chosen by Wiley from a list of highly suspect preservatives and coloring agents used in food.

The first compound mixed into the meals was borax, a commonly used preservative loaded with the silvery, metallic element boron. Borax and the related compound, boric acid, were high on Wiley's list because butchers commonly mixed them with salt and red dye to disguise old, or even rotting, meat.

Wiley started out by mixing borax powder into butter but rapidly discovered that the diners were responding to its metallic tang. They quit buttering their bread. He then mixed it into milk and coffee, but the men then began avoiding those beverages. Finally, Wiley gave up on deception altogether. He simply placed capsules of the poison into a serving bowl, and put it out for each meal.

The most remarkable part of the story is that the men doggedly swallowed those borax-filled capsules. They did so even though they developed persistent low-grade headaches, nausea, and rumbling abdominal pain as a result. Borax, as we now know, is not acutely poisonous, but it's definitely irritating to tissues and over the long term can cause weight loss and reproductive system damage. "Today the men are thinner than usual and all show the effects of the strain," the New York Times reported in 1904, in an article on some recent graduates from the poison squad.

I always check the dates.

I'd have to be awfully hungry to be on a poison squad.

nekochan wrote:

I'd have to be awfully hungry to be on a poison squad.

When we were young, we were INVINCIBLE!