Safety Squeezed Out

Some managers of the California-based Odwalla juice company told The New York Times on Sunday that the firm one of the nation’s largest fresh juice producers was growing so rapidly in the months prior to a deadly outbreak of bacteria that it failed to pay enough attention to safety. Company officials had begun relaxing safety standards and reined in the authority of its quality assurance managers, The Times reported. The outbreak, linked to E. coli bacteria in unpastuerized juice, began in October 1996 and led to the death of a 16-month-old girl in Colorado. Sixty-six others were reportedly sickened. A federal grand jury in Fresno, Calif., has for months been reviewing details of the contamination.