As these two articles below demonstrate, Austin Jack Decoster aka "Teflon Chicken Don", the man behind the recent Salmonella outbreak, is no stranger to controversy. He has been cited and fined numerous times before for Labor and Environmental Violations and Animal Cruelty charges dating back nearly 3 decades. Yet inexplicably, he's somehow managed to continue operating his "Food Inc"-style Industrial sized farms, even expanding operations over the years....
FDA-Egg Recall and Jack Decoster’s Wright Egg FarmAug 19, 2010 Politicol News Feed
-FDA Egg on their face with 380 recalled eggs expanded from 220 million yesterday and each day is getting worse with food safety in America.
Who: Wright County Egg an industrialized farm.
What: Expanding its recall (original recall date: August 13, 2010)
Where: California, Arizona, Missouri, Minnesota, Texas, Georgia, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Illinois, Utah, Nebraska, Arkansas, Wisconsin
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Wright County Egg situated in Galt, Iowa was founded by Jack DeCoster who started in Maine but expanded operations to Iowa in a huge industrialized chicken farm which is involved in the massive outbreak of salmonella food poisoning found in fresh eggs. The senior De Coster is the initiator of the massive egg industrial farm that provides eggs to distribution through many states including California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the State of Iowa itself.
Phone calls to the company have not been returned and they are in hiding trying to block information to the public about their salmonella eggs which will cost them millions if the FDA or CDC had the backbone to fine them for this disgraceful example of tainted industrial farm foods. The safety of Americans is worth the effort to insure these industrial farms are following safety regulations when it is obvious that the government is sleeping at the switch.
Much more at linkhttp://www.politicolnews.com/fda-egg-recall-and-jack-decosters-wright-egg-farm/______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here's another article; Pre-Salmonella outbreak....“Teflon Chicken Don” Jack DeCoster Agrees to Cruelty Pleaby Martha Rosenberg / June 16th, 2010
The Iowa attorney general called him a “habitual violator” of state laws.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich called his farms “atrocious.”
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But appearances of egg and hog tycoon noir Austin “Jack” DeCoster in court have been rare — as have convictions.
Last week DeCoster appeared in the Androscoggin County District Attorney’s Office as Maine Contract Farming, formerly DeCoster Egg Farm, pled guilty to what is believed the biggest monetary settlement for cruelty to farm animals in the nation. For failure to “provide adequate shelter and sustenance” for 10 hens at its Turner egg farm, Maine Contract Farming agreed to pay $25,000. It also agreed to pay $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture to cover costs of monitoring egg farms across the state against future animal abuse.
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Many remember the Turner raid last April when state officials and police troopers with a search warrant, some in HazMat suits, removed dead and living hens for evidence for eight full hours. Egg barns were so noxious with ammonia, four Department of Agriculture workers got sick themselves and were treated by doctors for burned lungs. OSHA launched an investigation — where were they before? — and state veterinarian Don Hoenig called the animal abuse “deplorable, horrifying and upsetting.”
Officials had been tipped off by an undercover video shot by a humane investigator for Mercy For Animals depicting live hens suffocating in garbage cans, twirled by their necks in incomplete euthanasia, kicked into manure pits to drown and hanging by their feet over conveyer belts. Footage even shows the investigator, hired as an employee, pointing out the suffering animals to DeCoster’s son Jay who says to disregard it.
Maine Contract Farming/DeCoster Egg Farm has a three decade-long complaint history from workers, neighbors, environmental officials, labor officials and humane workers.
In 1977 neighbors whose homes were infested with insects filed a $5 million lawsuit, claiming nose plugs and flyswatters should be the “new neighbor” kit.
In 1980, the DeCoster operation was charged with employing five 11-year-olds and a 9-year-old by the Labor department.
In 1988, 100,000 chickens burned to death in a fire and were left to decompose.
In 1992, DeCoster was charged by the state with indenturing migrant workers and denying them contact with teachers, social workers, doctors, lawyers and labor organizers.
In 1996, federal investigators found DeCoster workers living in rat and cockroach infested housing and OSHA found their drinking water contaminated with feces. Yum. (“The conditions in this migrant farm site are as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop we have seen,” said then Labor Secretary Robert Reich; “I thought I was going to faint and I was only there a few minutes,” said Cesar Britos, an attorney representing DeCoster workers, after entering a barn.)
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Still Jack DeCoster, using Boston spinmeister George Regan for public relations, eluded criminal convictions and farm closures and even expanded his empire from egg farms in Maine to pig farms in Iowa in the 1990s.
But his Teflon days could be changing. Beside the cruelty breakthrough, last week’s settlement might be the first time states have tapped abusers for the future costs of monitoring them.
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And Maine Contract Farming? Jack DeCoster’s son, Jay, who is operations manager said, “We are pleased to put this matter behind us so we can focus on the successful operation of our farm.”
It was not a new statement.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/06/teflon-chicken-don-jack-decoster-agrees-to-cruelty-plea/
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