State Calls for D.A. Probe of Jalisco Cheese Company

State officials have asked Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner to conduct a criminal investigation of Jalisco Mexican Products Inc., the company that produced the Mexican-style cheeses linked to a bacterial infection that has caused 39 deaths in California, it was learned Tuesday.

Food and Agriculture Department Director Clare Berryhill told The Times that top members of his staff have asked Reiner’s office to examine the Jalisco operation because of findings by inspectors that suggested that unpasteurized milk was used in some of the company’s products--a violation of state dairy product standards.

Sources in the prosecutor’s office said they have received reports that a fire occurred in a company safe at about the time Jalisco recalled its dairy products from grocery shelves June 13. The sources did not know whether company records were burned.

Reiner discussed the case extensively with his top assistants Tuesday. Sources indicated after the meeting that the district attorney would likely announce today whether to enter the case--one of the worst outbreaks of food-borne illness in recent history.

There were these other developments Tuesday:

- The recall of Mexican-style cheeses widened to a second company after federal inspectors discovered an enzyme associated with unpasteurized milk in cheese produced by Cacique Cheese Co. in the City of Industry. No Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, which have been linked to the deaths, were found in Cacique cheese.

- The state Food and Agriculture Department said it would station inspectors at three Southern California companies producing fresh Mexican-style cheeses to insure that no contamination occurs. The inspectors will regularly sample each batch of cheese.

- The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors asked for legislation that would levy stiff penalties on any grocery market or restaurant that continues to sell food that has been subject of a recall.

- The death toll in the listeriosis outbreak in Los Angeles and Orange counties reached 34 Tuesday, with the reporting of the earlier death of a stillborn infant born to a 27-year-old Latino woman who was not further identified.

Nationwide, 48 people have died from listeriosis during the period under investigation by health officials, but not all the deaths have been linked to Jalisco cheese.

Women and Infants

Many of the victims have been pregnant women and their newborn infants in Latino communities, where the cheese is widely sold.

Cacique Cheese Co., the largest manufacturer of Mexican-style cheeses in the Los Angeles area, said it is voluntarily recalling certain packages of the company’s soft, white, high-moisture cheeses-- queso blanco fresco, ranchero and panela .

“We are only removing those fresh cheeses that do not have a quality assurance (expiration) date on them,” said Jerry Pitkin, Cacique plant manager.

Berryhill said the problems at Cacique turned up when investigators began testing cheese made by various manufacturers. The health officials sampled 22 packages of Cacique cheese. Tests on two 12-ounce packages showed that Cacique’s queso blanco fresco cheese contained natural enzymes that should have been destroyed if the milk used to produce it had been properly pasteurized.

Pitkin said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had found the enzymes in two packages of queso blanco fresco that had no expiration dates because of a labeling error in the plant. He said the lack of such dates made it impossible to determine what batch they came from.

Retest Is Negative

But Pitkin said he took the same samples that the FDA had examined to a private laboratory in Vernon and the tests came back negative for the enzymes.

“I’m at a loss to explain the difference,” he said. “The recall was already in progress by the time I picked up the samples (from the laboratory). We did not want to keep delaying and (have) people saying, ‘If you knew this, why didn’t you recall it sooner?’ ”

Cacique markets its products in California, Arizona, Washington, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana and New York. Pitkin said he had no plans to cut back production and was continuing to produce the types of cheese recalled Tuesday.

“I can assure you every drop of milk goes through our pasteurizer,” Pitkin said.

State official Berryhill stressed that there was no evidence that the Cacique products were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the bacteria found in cheeses made by Jalisco and which cause a flu-like ailment linked to the 48 deaths and scores of illnesses in California and other states.

To Station Inspectors

To try to reestablish public confidence, state Food and Agriculture officials said they will station inspectors in all plants making Mexican-style cheeses.

Chief Deputy Director George J. Gomes said inspectors were being sent to Cacique’s plant in the City of Industry, Ariza Cheese Co. in Paramount and Green Valley Food in Barstow.

Two other cheese plants in the area produce hard, aged cheeses that officials said do not contain the bacteria. No inspectors will be stationed at the Jalisco plant while it is shut down, officials said.

Gomes said the inspectors will sample each batch of cheese as it is produced.

The intensified inspection came after tests by state and federal inspectors of Jalisco’s pasteurizing equipment confirmed earlier findings that the equipment was working properly, despite pinhole-sized leaks in a heat transfer plate separating cool raw milk from heated pasteurized milk. The unit is designed to prevent raw milk from entering lines containing pasteurized milk, even if leaks do develop.

Pasteurizer Working

“I have no doubt that the way (the pasteurizer) is working today that it would produce pasteurized milk,” said Roger Dickerson, an FDA engineer who was called in to check the unit.

A preliminary check of company records indicated that Jalisco was processing more raw milk than its equipment could have properly pasteurized, according to members of the task force seeking the cause of the cheese contamination.

As the investigation continues, the toll of death and serious illness brought on by the Listeria contamination appears to be mounting. But estimates of the numbers of individuals affected vary widely, in part because a certain number of cases could be expected, apart from the cheese-related outbreak.

In recent years, even before the current outbreak, 45 cases of listeriosis have been reported annually in Los Angeles County alone. During the current epidemic, it has not always been clear whether a particular case could be linked to consumption of contaminated cheese.

For example, a 3-day-old Ventura County girl died last Friday, apparently from listeriosis. Her mother reported eating Jalisco cheese a month earlier, in the final weeks of her pregnancy.

Blame Undetermined

Dr. Lawrence Dodd, medical coordinator for the Ventura County Public Health Department, said the bacteria may have been transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy. However, it is still uncertain whether the strain of Listeria bacteria found in Jalisco cheese is the same as the strain that caused the little girl’s death.

Most of those who consumed contaminated products would be expected to suffer minor flu-like symptoms, or no effects at all. Only susceptible individuals--pregnant women, the babies they are carrying, newborns and patients with weakened immune systems--would be expected to develop serious illnesses as a result of exposure.

While there is growing evidence that the source of the current Listeria outbreak was unpasteurized milk used in cheeses, no cases of listeriosis have been linked to consumption of certified raw milk. Berryhill and others pointed out that herds producing certified milk are tested regularly and maintained under rigorous conditions.

But Berryhill said that Jalisco and other cheese manufacturers do not use certified raw milk because they are expected to pasteurize the milk used in their products.

Seek Stiff Penalties

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday called for legislation that would place stiff penalties on those who willfully sell products under recall.

The motion, by Supervisor Pete Schabarum, was prompted by reports that a small Long Beach market continued to sell Jalisco products more than a week after the recall of the company’s cheeses was announced.