Kids
and Cafeterias: How Safe are Federal School Lunches?
Testimony of Cheryl Roberts of Comer, Georgia,
S.T.O.P. member and mother of Tyler Roberts, a victim of E.
coli O157:H7
April 30, 2025
"Kids and Cafeterias: How Safe are Federal School Lunches"
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring,
and the District of Columbia
House Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management
and Intergovernmental Relations
On April 23, 1998, my son Tyler was 11 years old. That day,
Tyler ate just a few bites of a contaminated, undercooked
hamburger at school. He realized it was raw and stopped eating
it, but not soon enough. It only takes 3-5 E. coli O157:H7
bacteria to kill a child. Tyler had eaten enough that his
next few weeks and ours would be filled with horror and the
fear that he would die.
Within the next few days, Tyler became very ill. Pain and
diarrhea, along with vomiting, came and went for days. We
visited his doctor, who was concerned but did not yet connect
his symptoms with hemolytic uremic syndrome, an outcome of
E. coli O157:H7 poisoning, since there had been no other reported
cases. For the next week Tyler’s condition was up and
down. At times he was doubled over with severe stomach cramps.
We felt helpless because he was hurting so bad. As his condition
got worse, the doctor sent us to have more extensive blood
work done. We were horrified to find out that Tyler was in
kidney failure.
He was hospitalized in Atlanta 80 miles from our home. We
were told that in most cases, children with Tyler's kidney
function would be on dialysis. But due to his existing diabetes,
and age near puberty, we were told that if he went on dialysis,
he would probably have to be put on a transplant list. Tyler
had to have diuretics and his color was white as a sheet.
He had severe fatigue. He cried and had horrible nightmares
of monsters coming to take him away. He was in the hospital
for a week. It would be well over a year before our 11-year-old
son got his color and strength back and began to look like
a normal child.
All of this, we then found out, was because of an under-cooked,
contaminated hamburger he ate at school. We had told the doctor
at the hospital about the hamburger. It was reported, and
someone went to the school the next day and took the leftover
hamburgers. They went to two different labs, and tested positive
for E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. It was sheer luck that they
obtained an identified pathogen and source. Often there is
no food left over to test, or the time window has passed,
or the lab makes an error. In this case, it was clear that
there was E. coli O157:H7 in the meat that Tyler had been
served at the school, which should have sparked a community-wide
effort to make sure that other children who had eaten the
same meat were identified and followed up with, and received
the necessary medical care. Instead, local health officials
and the media tried to make it appear Tyler only got sick
because he was diabetic.
Local health officials didn't want anyone to know the meat
was contaminated, so they didn't tell us. The health department
reacted as though it was our fault that he was sick, and it
couldn't be a problem with the school lunch. It was as if
they didn't want to believe this could have happened, especially
in their county. The principal and superintendent were the
ones who notified us. Other parents with sick children - and
there were many who called us afterward, and told us that
their children had the same symptoms - were encouraged to
think that their children had a virus.
This endangered other children in our community, because E.
coli O157:H7 is easily passed between children playing, and
in day cares, after school facilities and pools. The E. coli
outbreak in an Atlanta water park that sickened two dozen
children and killed 1 child a few years back was almost certainly
of food-borne origin. Another S.T.O.P. member who couldn't
be here today has a 6 year old daughter who suffered neurological
damage and will endure years of kidney transplants due to
E. coli O157:H7 that she contracted from playing with older
children who picked up the germ from their school lunch tacos.
We shouldn't be putting our children in danger from the simple
fact of eating a government-approved lunch.
Our story, more than anything, demonstrates how crucial it
is to ensure that food safe from pathogens is being sent to
school systems, where contaminated food can be mishandled
by a distracted worker or cross-contaminate and have a disastrous
effect on the health of a captive population of children.
Tyler was very sick because his hamburger was, first of all,
contaminated, and second, incorrectly prepared. His age and
weakened immune system put him in an especially vulnerable
condition for severe food poisoning. We feel very blessed,
because victims with even fewer health problems have died
from this brutal illness.
Our story also highlights the fact that victims are too often
treated like second-class citizens by health officials and
others whose main interest is covering up for any misdeeds,
not protecting the public health. This attitude comes at the
expense of the community. We live in a very small town. The
impact on our community from this has been huge and divisive.
Those who had children who had symptoms were concerned and
on one side, while those who didn't, or who knew little about
the bacteria, were on the other, feeling that this couldn't
be happening in our area. No lawsuit was filed against the
school, but people still acted as if we were out to hurt the
school. This is not an attack on the schools. It is a cry
for help.
The subject of this hearing is to determine what steps
our government should be taking to prevent foodborne disease
in the schools. The answer is simple - Tyler can tell
you, as can all of the children who have been poisoned by
diseases in their government-sponsored lunches. The answer
is “Every step you can.”
Among those steps should be the following:
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The mission for the school lunch program should be rewritten
to emphasize food safety as a fundamental concern. The standing
USDA prioritization of price above all has resulted in school
lunches becoming a dumping ground for ground beef and other
agricultural products of questionable safety. After my son's
illness the Dept. of Agriculture closed down the business
where the meat had been produced, and pulled its inspection
stamp, because the product they found in the plant was contaminated,
misbranded, adulterated, and unfit for human consumption.
Such meat should never have found its way into the school
lunch system in the first place. Purchasing policies should
take into account the vulnerability of the population being
served and prioritize safety accordingly.
-
Mandatory pathogen testing should be retained and greatly
expanded for all ground meat and poultry products, especially
those sold to the school lunch program. Pathogen testing
is America’s strongest weapon against foodborne disease.
Testing for E. coli O157:H7, salmonella, listeria and campylobacter
should be rigidly enforced by a federal agency with the
ability to shut down plants that repeatedly produce potentially
deadly products.
Although it did not succeed in killing my son, E. coli O157:H7
did claim a life in my son’s case. The man responsible
for the meat my son ate committed suicide when faced with
the public realization of the fact that he had caused my
son to fight for his life in a hospital bed. Unfortunately,
he apparently didn't care, or understand, until he was caught.
If the USDA’s existing testing and inspection systems
truly were effective, the contaminated meat never would
have left the factory.
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The government should place a premium on A) informing the
public of all foodborne disease occurrences to promote accurate
diagnoses and prevention, and B) on making corporations
accountable for their products. Distributed food products
that are contaminated should face mandatory recall, like
defective toys and tires, rather than the current system
which allows the food producer to choose whether, when,
and how much to recall. Manufacturers should be forced to
disclose institutional purchasers of their products so that
the product can be pulled from shelves and refrigerators
before they make someone sick.
Furthermore, the government should actively promote the
free exchange of disease information to help identify and
prevent future outbreaks rather than deliberately shielding
corporate culpability. One heartbroken S.T.O.P. family who
buried their 3-year-old son in August 2001 is still waiting
to learn the genetic fingerprint of a million pounds of
meat recalled at the time their son was sick - which
the USDA has so far refused to release despite the fact
that it is public information. This is in character with
the contradictory mission of the USDA - one of many
reasons why the move to a single food agency would be beneficial.
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Finally, the federal government should create a federally
funded victim assistance and compensation program, similar
to those that exist for crime victims and traumatic brain
injury victims, to assist families suffering from the ongoing
physical, emotional and financial ravages of foodborne disease.
Repeated trips back and forth to the hospital for blood
work and the doctor’s office for followups have put
tremendous strains on Tyler and our family. Even with insurance,
all of our costs were not covered. Tyler faces a strong
probability of kidney and other complications down the road.
Children more severely affected face years or lifetimes
of physical therapy, special education and counseling to
recover from strokes, heart failure, neurological damage,
post-traumatic stress syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other
aftereffects of defects in a government regulated product.
As one S.T.O.P. foodborne disease survivor recently told
PBS’ Frontline, “When the ordeal was over, I
had lost my spleen, my hair, a boyfriend, a normal immune
system and a semester of college and had gained a quarter
of a million dollars in medical bills and battle scars.
The effects of these diseases go far beyond the physical.”
Beyond this, I have nothing more to say except to urge you
to act quickly to make school lunches safer. My son's illness
probably saved children's lives, but unfortunately not before
he suffered and our whole family and community lived through
a nightmare. I ask you to make the several hundreds of children
who are lying in hospital beds right now, as Tyler did,
and the families who are praying for their child to recover
from their food-related illnesses, the last ones who need
to endure this hell because of preventable contamination
of their food.
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