NEWS-06
one hundred percent Parmesan cheese that was actually zero percent
Parmesan, the company had a problem.>
SCOTT PELLEY: If you love cheese, this news was pretty unappetizing. Some Parmesan contains wood pulp. And then last Friday an executive at a Pennsylvania food company pleaded guilty to selling cheese that had no relation to what was on the label. We asked Jim Axelrod to take a look.
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JIM AXELROD (CBS News National Correspondent): You would think when FDA investigators found Castle Cheese marketing one hundred percent Parmesan cheese that was actually zero percent Parmesan, the company had a problem.
DAVID HICKTON: The product that they were marketing and which was on the label was not what they were selling.
JIM AXELROD: U.S. attorney David Hickton brought the case against the company after an FDA inspection in 2012 found the company`s Parmesan was actually a mixture of cheaper cheeses like "Swiss" and "cheddar," and in one case, an "unknown ingredient."
DAVID HICKTON: Advertising it as Parmesan and Romano and putting something else so that the supplier could make more money and that`s just clearly fraud on the consumer.
JIM AXELROD: This was fraudulent, you in your view?
DAVID HICKTON: Yes.
JIM AXELROD: But we found fraud might not be the worst of it. These FDA records show finished cheese was stored in this un-refrigerated room which could cause bacteria to thrive. What`s more the company found listeria, a potentially deadly pathogen, in its production area ten times. But Castle continued to produce and sell its cheese to stores like Target and Walmart without testing it. That might be troubling enough. If we didn`t also find records from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture which inspected Castle around the same time as the FDA. Those records tell a very different story. In June 2012 state inspector David Trotter wrote: ".the plant continues to be in excellent condition. I appreciate the plant management and the quality work they do." His glowing reviews continued until August of 2013 when he left the Department of Agriculture for a new job: director of quality control at Castle Cheese.
I`m with CBS News.
We asked Trotter to explain his reviews of Castle but he declined.
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JIM AXELROD: Castle Cheese is no longer on the market. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2014. As for the FDA it will be rolling out new food safety regulations. The FDA tells us they`re designed to help gets state and federal inspectors on the same page.
SCOTT PELLEY: Jim, thank you very much.
Well, Chris rocked the Oscars last night. Up next, how many people saw him?
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CHRIS ROCK (A.M.P.A.S; 2016): You realize if they nominated hosts I wouldn`t even get this job. So you all be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.
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SCOTT PELLEY: Chris Rock roasted the Oscars last night on the issue of diversity. All the acting nominees were white. And Rock pointed out that`s happened many times in the past eighty-eight years. Nielsen (ph) says the thirty-four million Oscar viewers were the fewest in eight years.
George Kennedy won an Oscar in 1968 for his role in Cool Hand Luke and he became a fixture in the disaster pictures of the seventies, including all- four Airport movies. And he later showed off his comedic side in the Naked Gun movies. George Kennedy died yesterday. He was ninety-one.
Today the FDA said it`s issuing its strongest warning about Essure, an implantable, permanent contraceptive device used by three-quarters of a million women. Some have complained of chronic pain and bleeding. The FDA ordered the manufacturer, Bayer, to conduct a new safety study. It stopped short of removing the device from the market.
And we will be right back.
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