Pritzker Olsen Representing 5-Year-Old Victim of Fairbank Farms E. coli Outbreak

Posted by Fred Pritzker in Food Safety

My law firm has been retained to represent the family of a five-year old boy from Auburn, Maine who contracted hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) as a result of eating ground beef tainted with E. coli O157:H7. The boy’s illness, for which he was hospitalized for three weeks, has been affirmatively linked to the Fairbank Farms outbreak, which resulted in the recall of approximately 545,699 pounds of ground beef products because of potential E. coli O157:H7 contamination.

According to CDC, nineteen were hospitalized and 5 developed HUS, the leading cause of kidney failure in children in the United States.

According to a November 13, 2009 story in The New York Times, Fairbank Farms succumbed to pressure from its beef suppliers and inexplicably stopped testing all of its ground beef ingredients. According to the company, those procedures are now being re-evaluated. Unfortunately, that move comes too late for our client, as well as for the two people who have died and the people who have been sickened in the outbreak.

The needless suffering of the people sickened in this outbreak only serves to underscore the need for more stringent testing in the meat industry.  My law firm is actively supporting legislation currently under consideration that would require regular testing in meat plants.

To contact Pritzker Olsen law firm, please call 1-888-377-8900 (toll free), email Attorney Fred Pritzker or submit our online form for a free consultation.