As a  person ages, one tends to think about how their life’s work will be evaluated by future generations. Most people would want to be remembered for some accomplishment and hope that in the future, mistakes they made along the way will be forgotten.

For some, however, whatever they may have accomplished in life will be overshadowed by some spectacular moral failure. This is the unfortunate legacy of Jack DeCoster, self-made multi-billionaire farmer and US egg baron, par excellence .

By most accounts, Mr. DeCoster is the person behind the bulk of the eggs produced in this country. Through his subsidiaries and deals too entangled to entwine, Mr DeCoster and his cohorts control your egg supply, and have for many years.

Monopolies are not a good thing in any industry, but what makes this situation so incredibly bad for consumers is that the egg supply in this country is so seriously contaminated with Salmonella.

One only has to look at recent events and the history of DeCoster’s fiasco’s,  environmental, occupational, and public health to see that he is personally responsible for what has happened to the egg supply. It appears that most of the contaminated (and non contaminated) eggs in the US pass through him and his assorted businesses.

It didn’t have to be this way, but this is the way DeCoster apparently wants it.  So will he be remembered- not as the self-made successful business man- but: "The Notorious Egg Man Who Made America Ill".

For DeCoster’s latest assault on America’s public health, see:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/fdcp/?unique=1301439874140