Test Results Could Lead to Charges Against Jalisco

On the eve of a critical meeting to determine the cause of California’s biggest food poisoning case--this year’s Jalisco cheese listeriosis epidemic--a state Agriculture Department official Thursday released test results from France that could lead to criminal charges against the now-shut Artesia cheese firm.

At the same time, the official said, the results appear to indicate more strongly than before that City of Industry-based Alta-Dena Certified Dairy may have been a contamination link in the epidemic which killed 39 people and caused about 100 illnesses statewide.

As a result, said Hans Van Nes, the Agriculture Department’s deputy director, his inspectors were ordered Wednesday to begin intensive sampling of Alta-Dena’s raw milk supplies sold to the public.

“What it means,” Van Nes said of the test results, “is that (the bacteria strain) that caused the deaths was the same” as that found in Jalisco’s cheese.

Moreover, he said, the strain that was found in Jalisco products and in the Jalisco plant was also the same one that was discovered in Alta-Dena’s facility in a couple of isolated instances in late September and early October.

In Alta-Dena’s case, Van Nes said, the test findings mean that “we have a stronger link in the chain of evidence pointing to Jalisco’s milk supply.”

Twenty-seven dairies--including Alta-Dena--supplied Jalisco through Alta-Dena.

Van Nes called the test results “another step” further implicating Alta-Dena, but he cautioned that he would leave any final assessments up to today’s session at the Agriculture Department where federal, state and local investigators, health officials and scientists will attempt to unravel the Jalisco food poisoning puzzle.

Investigators for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office have postponed a decision on whether to file criminal charges against Jalisco Mexican Products Inc. and its officers until after the results of today’s meeting.

The prosecutors have said that they want to be absolutely sure that the bacteria found in Jalisco’s Mexican-style cheese-- Listeria monocytogenes type 4B--was the same as that found in the victims.

Dr. Michael Linnan, the Centers for Disease Control epidemiologist who directed a federal investigation of the California epidemic, identified the L . monocytogenes strain months ago as the deadly 4B variety. But Linnan and scientists for the federal Food and Drug Administration could not go beyond that and say with certainty that the 4B bacteria strain in Jalisco’s cheese was the same as that found in the victims.

What is more, the same 4B strain was uncovered in a plastic container of Mexican-style sour cream--called Jocoque--at the Alta-Dena plant, which the milk producer manufactured and packaged for Jalisco. Then, during an Agriculture Department inspection of the Alta-Dena plant about 10 weeks ago, L. monocytogenes 4B was found in a refrigerated tub of sodium caseinate, a milk derivative extracted from cottage cheese curd and added to the Jocoque.

Jalisco and Alta-Dena cheese and milk samples were then sent to Prof. Andre Audrurier of the University of Tours, France, medical facility who, after weeks of testing, concluded that in all cases--including the 4B type found in Jalisco cheese, in the Alta-Dena plant and in the victims--the bacteria was precisely the same.

Alta-Dena President Harold Stueve, charged that his company was the target of “a Linnan conspiracy to knock out all raw milk” sold to the public. “We don’t know how they found Listeria in our plant. We can’t find it.” He charged that the bacteria was “planted.”