Yesterday's USA Today carries an impressive 2,596-word Cover Story by reporter Julie Schmit recapping the utter breakdown in America's food-safety chain that failed to prevent the late 2008/early 2009 outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter products produced by Peanut Corp. of America.
Schmit, who reports on business-health topics for the national daily, writes that "the case reveals a food-safety system in which every key link in the chain of protection failed." As she notes, the outbreak produced as many as nine deaths and sicked at least 700 people.
Schmit covered the story as it unfolded in January and February 2009. She primarily reports alone, although she sometimes shares bylines with Elizabeth Weise.
Schmit, 47, joined the paper in 1992 from the Stockton Record, where she was a business writer. She has covered biotech, technology, and worked as the paper's Asia correspondent, among other beats.
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