The Oct. 4 edition of the New York Times contains a harrowing story of how a tainted hamburger put a young woman into a nine-week coma and left her paralyzed. The bad beef came from megafood processor Cargill, which answered the Times’ inquiry with, “Cargill is not in a position to answer your specific questions, other than to state that we are committed to continuous improvement in the area of food safety.” According to the story, Cargill cited the ongoing litigation as the reason for its brief response. This shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, I can argue convincingly that it’s exactly the right response.
How can Cargill “win” here? With the case still pending, the woman still paralyzed and little likelihood that the story can be made positive, Why would Cargill do anything different? Any statements of sympathy or discussion of changing inspection processes (a strong sub-story) could damage Cargill in court. Nothing the company could say would convince anyone that Cargill was anything but a greedy bunch of capitalists, willing to sacrifice customer health on the alter of profit.
Am I wrong?
