Review Of The Netflix Film "Poisoned:The Dirty Truth About Your Food" with Bill Marler

I am sorry I understand there are a couple of audio problems, mainly towards the beginning- Bill does a great job.

In this episode, Jerry interviews Bill Marler, a renowned lawyer and food safety advocate. Bill is known for his work representing the people who sued Jack in the Box in the 1990s, which led to a movement for food safety. He has since dedicated his time and resources to fighting for better food safety laws. Jerry shares his admiration for Bill's commitment and recounts how Bill went above and beyond to help him with technical difficulties during their Zoom podcast interview. Jerry also highlights the upcoming Netflix documentary, "Poisoned," which features Bill and his work. Tune in to hear more about Bill's impactful career and the importance of food safety.

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Transcript

 00:00Jerry
Hi, this is Jerry with Cleaning Processes with Jerry. I'm excited to tell you the guest that I had an interview with last week. His name is Bill Marler. He's the number one subject in the book Poisoned, which is now going to come out this week on a Netflix documentary concerning food poisoning. Originally he was the lawyer who represented the people who sued Jack in the Box back in the 1990s and really started the movement for food safety. Since then, he's only worked on food safety issues and has spent his own dollars, his own time to go before Congress, to go to Washington, D.C. on many occasions to fight for upgrading our laws, this, that, and the other. I could sit here and tell you 30 minutes of what he has done, but it wouldn't do any justice because I will give you a real short thing. Beside all of the things he's going to talk about, I will tell you that I had different problems today trying to do a Zoom podcast with him. It was this past Friday, late in the afternoon, that's four o'clock. He hung in there with me, tried to assist me with the Zoom, tried to assist me with different things. He could have easily just bailed. He probably had many other things to do than doing a podcast for someone who was having computer problems. Through, through the gentleman, from him and his office, his staff, assisted in so many different ways for this podcast. I'm just so excited. I'm also excited because it will be tomorrow night, August 2nd, when the premiere comes out on Netflix of the film. I think we should all be excited to see it. By the time this is broadcast, it should be out. Hopefully, you listen to this podcast, hopefully you like it and share it. Take everything Bill has to say about what we can do as individuals, we can do as companies. If you're in chemical sales, what we can do. A remarkable, remarkable interview. And I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for joining me today. You will be my first guest that has ever been on Netflix. So, now I know it's not out yet. It's next week. This is monumental for me. I've never interviewed some of that. But congratulations, but your achievements are much larger than that. I put together a couple of minutes before this, which will be an introduction and stuff like that. And I went through your achievements. And if I read them all right now, I told you I wouldn't go more than 25 minutes. You know, it'd be high by and here's the achievements. You've had a great career. But the audience, can you give us a short introduction?03:23

Bill Sure. Well, I'm a lawyer, have been a lawyer since 1987. And so, you know, that's pushing me out there in years of practice. I have had sort of a unique experience for the last 30 years of my practice, focused on foodborne illness litigation. And I started that as a very young lawyer, just about four years out of law school when the Jack in the Box E. Coli outbreak hit Seattle mostly, but, you know, obviously there were several other states involved. And then, you know, really since then, you know, I've focused my career on representing victims in foodborne illness outbreaks. In 1998, I started the firm Marlar Clark. Clark was chief counsel for Jack in the Box. And so I hired him away along with a couple of other his lawyers. And we started Marlar Clark and our focus has been on foodborne illness cases since then. You know, sort of in the that's what I spend 100% of my time doing. Sort of in another 100% of my time, I do a lot of food safety advocacy work, you know, both on legislation and speaking around the world to industry groups, consumer groups, food safety organizations, essentially trying to explain why it's a bad idea to poison people. So and, you know, I've just been really blessed to be able to, you know, not only represent some incredibly horribly injured people and to help them, but to meet some really great people in and out of the industry, in and out of government who, you know, our goals are remarkably similar and it's put me out of business.05:23

JerrySo it's been a unique time. I've read the book. Yeah, more than once. I actually got it on Audible this week. I asked her if I could listen to it as I was driving to prepare for this, thinking of something I might have missed and stuff.05:39

Bill The book, surprising, I believe, well, it's over 20 years old and it's not quite 20 years. Well, the story was 1993. The book came out, I think it was like 2012, 2013.05:59

Jerry Correct. The book's 10 years old. The story of the E. Coli is 30 years. Yeah, forgive me. See, I studied all this, but it's gone off. Do you, since the book is that, you know, even though 10 years, a lot of things have happened in 10 years and I learned that the film at Netflix is actually filmed, am I correct, during COVID? Yeah. And I know you're not the author. Do you think the author, Jeff, is ever going to update and come out with a second edition of the book?06:35
Bill  So the there's actually been, I think, three editions of the book. And, you know, he self-published it because he actually couldn't get the publishing company to publish it when he wrote it. But he felt so strongly about it. He actually self-published it. And, you know, since then, he's become, you know, he's written three other New York Times bestsellers. Some of them had have gone into films. Interestingly, he did a book on Tiger Woods. It became a miniseries. He's done a book on the dynasty, the New England Patriots. And that has become this being filmed now. And then he's done a book on King James, the basketball player. And so he's he's really become quite prolific. And I'll take full credit for it for him doing points first.07:34J
Jerry So please do in the book. And I know you're not the author, but it had a little bit of everything. There was even there was even I'm going to say this, there was even like a love story in it because of the talk. You know, you share that story with your wife because of the the dowel, the dowel you gave Brianna. Now, will any of the children be in the film looking back?
08:00Bill  Yeah. So so the maybe I'll give you a kind of a sense of what I've seen the whole thing. I was they showed it at the Tribeca Film Festival and got great reviews. The movie is really more focused on where food safety is now. It does start off with Jack in the Box starts off. It's got a lot of video of me when I'm 30 something. So it's a little shocking to see a 60 year old guy now. But it really starts off kind of the beginning of Jack in the Box and sort of what happened during that that time and what happened both to the victims and what happened to in legislation and changes in the industry. And then the frankly the movie progresses over the course of the last 30 years. You know, the through line of the movie in many respects is my law practice. And so, you know, we deal with the Peanut Corporation of America, Salmonella and Chicken, E. Coli and Romaine lettuce and a variety of other things. And it tells stories about some of the victims. It tells stories about how some of the outbreaks happened, what the outcomes were, what legislation has passed, what legislation hasn't passed. And really, you know, I think for me, I think two things I think are the kind of most important takeaway from the movie. One is I tell the story about, you know, the first decade of my practice was almost all E. Coli cases linked to hamburger. And, you know, eventually the industry and the government consumers, you know, in a sense, fix that problem. And I just don't see E. Coli cases linked to hamburger anymore. That used to be 90 percent of my business. That's zero now. And that's a positive thing. So I think that really has come out that, you know, industry and government and consumers working together can solve a problem. I think that is a good thing. But it also shows some of the things that are still not working very well. And, you know, ultimately, there's kind of a call to action at the end where, you know, we really urge consumers, the industry and government in a sense to do what they did, you know, with E. Coli and hamburger and do it again with with other food products. And so even though that does show some pretty negative things about the food industry and and what can happen to victims, I think it also there should be a feeling like there if if you do just a little bit more, we can make some good progress.

10:43 Jerry Right now, again, I thank you for joining me today. I realize you've probably had many requests to speak in the past week, and I guess it was a week ago when I first saw the introduction was on your site. So I said, I got to reach out. You were kind enough to respond. We were to have this. You bet. I come from a field. This isn't about me. This is about you, the film and the whole thing. But to bring it to me, I come from the hospitality industry. Started out as dishwasher 50 years ago, just plain and simple as that. Went into management, started to be a chef, different things. Then I got into the chemical industry for restaurants, hospitality. I now have moved in. You know, we could talk war stories all day of the things I've seen in my past. In the past six years, I've I've been changed. Now I work into chemicals and food plants. So now that's another whole thing. But again, I have seen a lot of things. I realize you've been in many of these plants and you probably I don't know. Do you have any advice for chemical companies of what they can do? The individual vendors themselves or the corporate headquarters, how they can help

12:04 Bill some of these people? Do you see any opportunities? Well, I mean, you know, obviously, you know, cleaning chemicals, you know, chemicals to keep, you know, knock down bacterial loads are, you know, I think incredibly important, you know, in manufacturing facilities, especially ones that are, you know, cool, wet environments where, you know, Listeria can lurk. You know, I think that, you know, the chemical industry has a big place in, you know, in preventing foodborne illness. And, you know, I urge, you know, those companies to continue to innovate. You know, there's, you know, the chemical industry has not only to being concerned about, you know, taking care of pathogens, but it's like also, you know, taking care of the environment, taking care of, you know, exposures to food workers. And that's all of that can be kind of obviously very complex. But, you know, I certainly think that, you know, obviously, the chemical industry has a big place in, you know, trying to make our food supply safer.

13:10 Jerry And I know many of them have gone on and hired food consultants, food safety, SQF, because we're not just one chemical company. All chemicals companies are trying to help because it's a very important issue. One thing that's not in a sales manual, but I know that, and I'm bringing this up, that there's always a language barrier frequently. And I when I sold chemicals in New York City, I actually failed because I had a language barrier. Everyone that I was competing against, even people within my own company, know how to speak Spanish. I took two years Spanish in high school. I had forgotten most of it. So I'm not saying I failed, but it was just it was hard to do because you have to have all tools in the toolbox because you're dealing with the employees who are frequently from another country. Sure. And I can see that. It brings a lot of challenges, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So what in I mean, the film is important. I guess the jack in box is important. I know I heard the story on one podcast or YouTube the other day that you met Barack Obama. What do you look back as being the highlight or the most? Not the highlight. These are all highlights. The ones you're the most proud of.

14:41Bill  You know, I certainly, you know, I look back on, you know, the people I've represented, you know, who through no fault of their own were, you know, severely injured family members. And, you know, that that I have to admit is my my primary objective is to take care of my clients and to do a good and honorable job doing that. And I feel very proud about the work that I've done and the firm has done and we're still doing. But I also am really glad that, you know, over the last 30 years, I've spoken at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of, you know, different conferences, you know, around the world. I've, you know, been to China several times, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, you know, Europe, Africa. And, you know, I have had a lot of opportunity to sort of spread the word about, you know, why it's important. You know, food safety is really important. And I tell the stories of my clients, and I think that that has had an impact. And I think part of the impact, I think, of getting out there and, you know, in a sense, putting my face in front of these groups. And sometimes there are industries that I've sued, you know, the leafy green industry, the meat industry. And normally a place where you wouldn't expect a guy like me to show up. And I think sometimes putting a human face on it makes it harder for them to go, oh, you know, he's just an ambulance chasing, you know, SOB. You know, the fact that they can meet me, they can hear my what I've learned, what my story is and stories of my clients. I think that that's also helped the industry have a better understanding that, you know, we're talking about real people, real injuries, that they have a responsibility to try to prevent this as much as humanly possible. So I think I feel really good about that. And, you know, I do it on my own dime. You know, I don't get paid to give speeches and and travel. So, you know, I feel I'm proud of that. You know, I helped obviously testify in front of Congress. I've helped push legislation, you know, Food Safety Modernization Act and other things and continue to do so. And and I that's a much slower process and with a lot less success. But it's not without that.

17:29 Jerry I I've certainly tried now as an individual, just a person, if I was your neighbor, what advice do you give to your friends or people you meet in the quaintest of what they can do for food safety? The family and stuff like that. What's what's some of the things they need to look out for?

17:47 Bill Pretty, you know, pretty basic stuff. You know, I mean, keep hot things hot and cold things cold and wash your hands. You know, I mean, and keep your kitchen clean. Get rid of that dishrag more often than you think you should. But also, I think and this is from my experience, more so than anything, is that many of the outbreaks that I've been involved in involve food products that are highly processed or highly handled. Like, you know, 30 years ago, you know, there weren't bagged triple wash, chopped salads, you know, you had to buy a head of lettuce and wash it yourself. I don't have very many foodborne illness outbreaks linked to heads of lettuce. I have a lot of them linked to triple wash, chopped bagged salads. Yeah. And so so, you know, one of the things I tell people and it's is is that sometimes convenience is not worth the risk. And that especially if you're, you know, it's an your immune compromised or you're pregnant or you're elderly, you know, thinking about keeping things a bit more simple and, you know, wash things thoroughly. But, you know, kind of shy away from processed foods, not processed foods in the in the sense of necessarily in the sense of, you know, cookies and crackers and things like that, that, you know, obviously have other issues of nutrition. But I'm talking about, you know, cut fruits and vegetables that may, you know, sit in a grocery store for a while and then sit in your refrigerator for a while. And, you know, that can cause issues, especially, again, for people with immune compromised situations.19:38JerryAnd am I correct? Well, I know this. A lot of that stuff we assume is being cut in the back of the grocery store. And it's not. It's coming in. It's already days old by the time it gets in the store itself. And they have no control.19:56BillYeah. And it's, you know, the reality is, is that, you know, putting aside the peanut corporation of America's salmonella outbreak, you know, most of these outbreaks occur when there are mistakes that are made. And, you know, if if you're, you know, if it's a cut fruit or vegetable or a bag lettuce, you know, most of the time it's going to be fine. But if there's a pathogen in it and it's allowed to grow to an infectious level, that's where you start to see, you know, problems. And I know that, you know, the industry is trying to cater to consumer demands, but sometimes it also drives consumer demands. Whether you make it so convenient. And again, I get it. I mean, you know, we're all busy. You know, it's so much easier to walk into a grocery store and grab a bag of salad and you can just go home and throw it in a bowl and you're done. But again, you know, for most, I shouldn't even say most for, you know, the non-immune compromised population, the likelihood of getting sick is really low. But our population is significantly skewed to immune compromised folks and young people and pregnant women and and the elderly and people who are HIV AIDS or who are on steroids, who are on been on cancer treatments. So I think the industry needs to be careful. And I think consumers need to be careful.21:28JerryNow, will the documentary have, toward the end, a call to action for people what they can help, how they can help?

21:36 Bill Yeah, yeah, there is. There's, you know, there are some consumer groups that are, you know, at the end, a congresswoman. You know, there's a there's a scene. There's a scene. I think by then I was kind of tired. And they were asking me, you know, kind of, what do you feel like you accomplished? And I I was sort of, you know, being a little sanguine about it. And I said, you know, after doing this for as long as I had, I kind of thought I'd be a little further along. And I felt disappointed in myself. And that's true. I do, you know, to be candid with you. But then at the very end, you know, they asked, so so what are you going to do? And I was just like, but I'm going to get back to work, you know,

22:24 Jerry and so here I am. So as we as we wrap up, how can people get a hold of you? And tell us about your blog and your ways of social media and stuff like that, because I've actually been following you for, I think, over since I first got on Twitter 12 years ago, because I was following someone. I'll make this short because I know I was following somebody who was designing an app. It was kind of like Yelp, but it just told how clean the restaurant was. But it never the gentleman passed away is what happened. But besides that, I came across your site. I've been following you. But how do other people get a hold of you and follow you?

23:06 Bill Yeah. You know, fortunately or unfortunately, I'm pretty easy to find. You know, I have Marlar blog dot com is where I pontificate about stuff, sometimes a little offhanded. But, you know, I try to get my point across. You know, my law firm is Marlar Clark, Marlar Clark dot com. I'm also the owner and publisher of Food Safety News, which we have, you know, been successfully publishing that since 2009. I don't really have much in the way of control. I don't really control what they write or what their editorial content is. I just sort of fund the thing. But, you know, Food Safety News really has, you know, become sort of the go to place for food safety issues. Got four full time writers, got about 60000 subscribers every, you know, every day and about between four and seven million visitors every month to the website. So, yeah, it's very yeah, I'm away. I'm way easier to find, maybe a little harder to find. Nowadays, our law office is still in Seattle. But during Covid, I live on an island across from Seattle and I opened up a little office over here. And so I tend to work here most of the week and get to Seattle rarely.

24:33 Jerry I was actually going to ask you that question. I have because I looked up the island on Google Maps. And you have written that you took the ferry back and forth.

 Bill And I built this my Zoom studio over here because I was doing so many still doing like speeches around the world. But, you know, we weren't traveling for the last two years. And but I started doing them and I decided I better I needed a better, you know, room. So I've got I've got this is a flat screen TV. I can put anything up behind it. I want I've got nice lighting, a good boom mic and a and a really nice camera ahead of me. So it works pretty well. So. Fantastic. It's a pleasure meeting you. Thank you for joining me on Friday. Wishing the very best and have a great weekend and, you know, grab some popcorn and enjoy the movie. I appreciate it. Have a great weekend. All right. Take care.

Summary Yeah. Well, I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did taping it and going through it afterwards. As I speak to you today, I still have not seen the Netflix film. I'm anxious to see it. I'm anxious to hopefully talk to Bill Marley again sometime later at another date afterwards. And also, I want to thank you and also wish to thank all the new listeners today. Anybody who has signed up at any of the podcast servers that we have around iTunes, Spotify, Buzzsprout, Amazon. And we're slowly getting subscribers. Hope you join the show. Hope you continue to check into other ones. I have about three more guests who've been asking to come on. Hopefully I can get some of these out. I slowed down there for a little bit, but I hope to get it up to back to full speed soon. Again, this is Jerry. We're cleaning processes with Jerry. Have a great day. Continue to wash your hands for 30 seconds and stay safe. Thank you.