He helped make burgers safer. Now he’s fighting food poisoning again.

From the Washington Post, Kimberly Kindy profiles Marler, 62, who represented hundreds of victims in the Jack in the Box food poisoning case in the 1990s and was "outraged by the avoidable tragedy that sickened 700 and claimed the lives of four children." He courted the media to get E. coli on policymakers' agendas and played a key role in getting USDA to outlaw the most virulent strains in meat. Now he's targeting salmonella, which has become the most dangerous bacteria in meat over the past decade. Marler filed a petition with USDA asking it to ban dozens of salmonella strains from meat. USDA data shows about 1 in every 10 chicken breasts, drumsticks or wings consumers purchase is probably contaminated with salmonella from fecal matter during slaughter. "When I tell people that chicken manufacturers can knowingly and legally sell something that can kill you, they don't believe me," Marler said. "People are equally surprised to learn that the federal government 'stamps meat USDA certified,' all along knowing that it could be contaminated with cow or chicken' feces." The meat industry opposes banning salmonella, saying necessary technology hasn't been developed and prices would rise. "With E. coli, it was a wake-up call for an industry that wasn't paying attention to that pathogen. The industry is not asleep at the wheel with salmonella," said Mark Dopp of the North American Meat Institute. "We are doing everything we can think of." But former USDA food safety chief Richard Raymond notes that after E. coli was banned, "meat got safer." Marler's 62-page petition presents legal arguments against past USDA and meat industry positions, and he plans to sue if the USDA rejects it. CDC estimates salmonella causes about 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations and 420 deaths annually, with about one-third involving meat. "Chicken s--- shouldn't be on chicken flesh, it should be in chickens' guts. Period. End of story."