Sunday marks the second Mother’s Day I will spend without my mother. The second Mother’s Day I cannot thank her for all that she did for me and my family.
My mother, Nellie Napier, was a survivor in every sense of the word. As a single mom, she raised six children on a meager income and was too proud to accept government assistance even when she was making less than a dollar an hour.
As a grandmother of 13 and great-grandmother of 11, she lived her life to the fullest – enjoying reading, putting together puzzles, and cheering on her beloved Cleveland Indians. I never expected to lose her to something as seemingly harmless as peanut butter.
In January of 2009 we celebrated mom’s 80th birthday. It was a wonderful party. Little did we know that she would suddenly become ill. By the time her stool sample came back from the lab that showed she was suffering from the effects of Salmonella, she had already been sent to the hospital. Things soon took a turn for the worse as her infection turned into sepsis. My brothers and sister and I had to watch our mother die slowly and painfully. She passed away on January 26, 2009.
In the midst of her sickness, we were shocked to find out that peanut butter was to blame for the Salmonella infection. The contamination that killed my mother was the same one that that sickened more than 700 people and was traced to the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). PCA recalled its products on January 28 – two days after my mother passed away – and months after the first victims began getting sick.
Since her death, my family found S.T.O.P. – Safe Tables Our Priority, an organization that helps victims and through them we have met scores of other families who have become sick from consuming FDA-regulated products. They have helped us work tirelessly to educate the public about our mother’s untimely and unnecessary death.
The laws that govern FDA’s food-safety oversight system are very outdated, having not been substantially changed in more than 70 years! And, shockingly, the FDA currently lacks the authority to recall any products, even when a known, deadly pathogen has been detected and reported. The FDA needs this authority, and companies need to know that if they do something wrong they will face strict consequences.
My mother was the ninth and final victim of the contaminated peanut butter outbreak – a deadly batch that should never have reached that many people. I know that my mother would still be here today if FDA had the resources and authority it needed to do a better job.
A year and a half later, my family and others directly impacted by foodborne illness are still fighting to press Congress to pass food-safety legislation. I’ve traveled to Washington, D.C., on three separate occasions to urge lawmakers to pass reforms that will prevent other families from losing their loved ones and enduring the suffering that my family has been through. I cannot fully finish grieving my mother’s death until the U.S. Senate passes this desperately needed FDA reform that will help prevent foodborne illness from claiming the lives of innocent Americans in the future.
I refuse to let my mother be the nameless ninth casualty of the peanut butter outbreak. As we approach Mother’s Day, I beg the U.S. Senate to do their part to honor all the other mothers who have been unfairly impacted by foodborne illness, and pass the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) as soon as possible.
Randy Napier
Son of Nellie Napier
Medina, OH
The opinions here are the author's alone and do not represent the official policy for the entire Make Our Food Safe coalition.