Made at Plains Dairy in Amarillo, Texas

FOUND TO BE CONTAMINATED WITH TOXIC CHEMICALS FROM OIL REFINERY WASTE!

NEW FDA REPORT SHOWS TWO PRIOR COMPLAINTS ABOUT
RED DIAMOND TEA MADE AT PLAINS DAIRY
IN 2005 AND 2007!

JOIN ME IN MY JOURNEY AS I BATTLE BUMBLING BUREAUCRATS AND IDIOCRACY WHILE TRYING TO GET A TAINTED FOOD PRODUCT RECALLED AND ALERT THE PUBLIC
NOW I’M BEING SLAPP SUED BY RED DIAMOND FOR CREATING THIS WEBSITE!!

March 26, 2008 Wednesday

My husband opens a brand new jug of Red Diamond Tea bought in Wichita Falls,
Texas.

 He is so thirsty from working outside, he downs an entire glass without thinking. He    exclaims how bad it tastes and smells so fervently that I get up off the couch to check it  out.

I'm shocked when I smell into the jug. The fumes are so strong it’s like a wall hitting me in the face. It’s vile, like it is contaminated with something that is extremely toxic.

I contact Poison Control and the store manager. He wants me to give him the tainted jug to "give back to the distributor." So they can destroy it. Ahh, no. Don't think so.

I call Red Diamond headquarters in AL and leave a message for their National Standards Manager, Laurie.

March 27, 2008 Thursday

I FEDEX a tea sample for analysis to a private lab that tests food products.

We pay for these expensive tests ourselves.

There is no government agency that will test possibly tainted food products that have been opened by the consumer. But who is most likely to discover a tainted product? The consumer.

The lab’s preliminary exam of the sample is that it contains volatile hydrocarbons, like paint thinner or kerosene.

I am scared my husband is going to die. Then I worry someone else might die.

Laurie from Red Diamond calls me back.

I tell her the lab thinks the tea is contaminated with hydrocarbons. She scoffs. She is argumentative and dismissive. She tells me their tea gets "funky smelling when it gets hot" as if toxic oil refinery waste appears naturally whenever tea leaves are heated up.

I give her the contact number for the lab. She does not call them. Ever.

I contact the FDA, am told the information "will be put into a database." Wow, that really helps people who might have unknowingly ingested a poisonous substance in a tainted product --- the information is put in a file folder called "More Stupid Consumer Complaints."

 March 28, 2008 Friday

One of the tea lab results comes in showing THREE TOXIC CHEMICALS (Methylcyclopentane, Isooctane aka 2,2,4 Trimethylpentane, 1,3 Pentadiene)  They are volatile hydrocarbon chemicals found in the production of crude oil to gasoline. They are flammable and poisonous to ingest or breathe.

The FDA office is closed until Monday because there can't possibly be a public health hazard occurring over the weekend. I leave a message.

I have the toxicology lab FAX the report to the hospital that treated my husband.

They refuse to report my husband's poisoning to the Health Department claiming that it "isn't something they would do." I insist. The woman handling my call argues that they will do it only if they are "legally required." (Turns out there is no law requiring them to.)

No thought to doing it because the public needs to know there's a health hazard out there.

Note that when I was treated for an infected cat bite from my own pet, that same hospital reported it immediately. Animal Control raced over to my house and wanted to take my cat into custody.

For more shocking stories of greed, mismanagement, and incompetence in the healthcare system read the scathing expose on the hospital industry:

Sheer Buffoonery: How Hospitals Kill Patients

March 29, 2008 Saturday

 We go to various stores and find the same lot number on the shelves. No one has pulled
  it.

 Since there is no governmental agency, no national plan in place to deal with tainted food
 products, we decide we must alert the public ourselves. We will protest at the store.

 We pay to have signs made and copies of the lab results.

 We're going to have to make spectacles out of ourselves to warn people.

 We figure a little social discomfort on our part is worth it if it helps one person who drank
 this tea or who might drink it.

March 31, 2008 Monday

I call the Texas Department of State Health to report the tea. The woman answering doesn't know what the word "tainted" means.

I get shuffled from one person to the other. No one seems to know what to do about a food product that isn't contaminated with lead or pesticides. They are apparently set up to handle those contaminants or asbestos.

Joe from the Health Department’s Manufacture Foods Group calls back. He says if they discover the plant is located in Texas they will send an inspection team.

I guess the Health Department is only interested in investigating poisonings from plants in Texas, but if something is poisoning Texans from a plant outside Texas, not their problem.

Joe doesn’t want a sample from our jug, nor one of the unopened jugs with the same lot number.

He says this to me when I demand the Health Department alert the public: "We don't know it's contaminated."

Uhm, yeah we do. We have lab results detecting toxic chemicals not exactly found laying around the house.

April 1, 2008 Tuesday

I call the EPA. The man answering asks me to FAX a copy of the lab report.

He asks why I think it's the EPA's responsiblity.

I point out to him that the chemicals from an oil refinery could most likely end up in a water based drink from ground water contamination.

He tells me to call the EPA National Response Center.

I call the NRC and the woman answering the phone dismisses me right away.

She tells me to contact the Health Department. I tell her I have and  insist this is an issue for the EPA. I get silence for so long I think she's died on me.

After several minutes of arguing I force her reluctantly to take my report. She says she can't file my report because I can't give her the address of the plant where the tea originated from.

I explain that I don't work for Red Diamond. I have no idea what the addresses of their plants are. I'm just a concerned citizen calling in a complaint.

It's like I've entered an alternate universe where all common sense and reasoning don't exist.

April 2, 2008 Wednesday

I get a call from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality. They received the report I filed with the EPA's Response Center.

Here's how that went:

 TCEQ Clown: "It's not an environmental issue. This is probably an isolated incident involving cleaning solvents." (...and he knows this because he's psychic?)

 Me: "No, these are the chemicals found in oil refinery. The Plains Dairy doesn't have isooctane just laying around."

 Silence.

 Me: "Hello?? This could be a ground water contamination issue."

 TCEQ Clown: "Well, ma'am. They get their water from the city." (again, his psychic powers are amazing. He knows that from sitting at his desk.)

Me: "Do they? Explain to me then how these chemicals got into their drink if it's not a water contamination issue at some level."

TCEQ Clown: "It's a bottling issue at the plant. This is out of my jurisdiction. I will alert the Texas Health Department."

Me: "I've already contacted them. I want to know what government agency is going to alert the public to this hazard?"

TCEQ Clown: "Well, ma'am, there's a process."

Me: "This process is taking too long. At this rate anyone who drank the tea, that wasn't outright killed by it, will have died of old age."

TCEQ Clown: "Do you want me to call the Health Department?"

Me: "I said I've already contacted them!"

TCEQ Clown: "This is out of my jurisdiction."

He couldn't end his obligatory call fast enough.

How would he know it isn't an environmental issue since he didn't investigate anything? We are in Texas, a place filled with old oil pumps, refineries and contaminated wells..

When we first spoke I had to argue with him about the location of the plant in relation to a refinery as if that's my responsibility to investigate. Suddenly, I'm supposed to be a petroleum engineer.

He wanted to cut me off at that point.

"CLICK.” Idiotic Citizen.

(Note: Months later I discover the TCEQ didn't even log a report of my complaint but they had logged a complaint from someone who reported "dust" on a street that day.)

April 3, 2008 Thursday

Investigators from the U.S. Public Health Services/FDA came over and took my statement. It took hours.

They refused to take any of the original tainted tea but they took two unopened jugs we bought of the same lot to test.

The FDA sends an inspector out to inspect the Plains Dairy plant that Red Diamond subcontracts to brew and bottle the tea. The Plains Dairy makes juice and milk products, too. 

I find out later the inspector isn’t told about all the lab results because of an FDA internal miscommunication. He admits to me he didn’t know what he is supposed to be looking for and would have done things differently.)

April 7, 2008 Monday

The TCEQ guy said I was "the only one to complain" about the tea. As if that automatically invalidates my complaint: it's The Only One.

Let's see how that line of reasoning works in another situation:

"911. What is your emergency?"

"There's a fire at a house with a family trapped inside! 3131 Elm Street. Hurry!"

"Fire? How do you know there's a fire?"

"Well. I can see it and I can smell it."

"No one else has reported a fire."

"So? I'm reporting it now."

"I'm sorry ma'am but yours is The Only call we've received about this so-called 'fire' of yours."

"What are you talking about?! Who cares how many calls you've received, it's a fire!"

"Ma'am, I going to have to ask you to calm down."

"Are you kidding me? It's a fire! It's your job to take care of it! "

"Because of our blanketed policy of disregarding reports from Only One person I'm going to hang up. If someone else calls to report this fire, maybe we'll look into it."

"What? No! Wait!"

CLICK

Alternately, if you're the second or tenth person to complain you're dismissed with: "We've already received that complaint, ma'am." You can't win.

Besides, I'm not "complaining." This is a complaint: "The tea is too sweet.”

I’m reporting on dangerous chemicals found in a beverage that is being sold to an unsuspecting public.

Read the rest of this story here

I am being SLAPP sued by Red Diamond for having
the audacity to discover one of their food products is
tainted and want to warn others about it.

Read all about it here.

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Updated Augustl 2009