Salmonella Search Continues: Officials Now Looking Beyond Tomatoes

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Salmonella Search Continues: Officials Now Looking Beyond Tomatoes

While investigators look beyond tomatoes to other sources for Salmonella saintpaul contamination, the FDA activated the Food Emergency Network, as it did during the spinach and contaminated pet food outbreak in 2007.

ONGOING OUTBREAK: The Salmonella saintpaul outbreak that began in April is still going on. The federal government is expanding its search to other produce besides tomatoes for the source of the contamination.

by Patricia McFadden
Informify Staff Writer
July 3, 2008

According to David Acheson, MD, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) associate commissioner for foods, tomatoes continue to be the main suspect in the recent outbreak of Salmonella saintpaul. However, the FDA is now running tests on produce items often served with tomatoes. "The tomato trail is not getting cold, rather other items are getting hotter," said Acheson. (Washington Post, 7/02/08)

Salmonella Outbreak: Quick Facts

Ages of People Infected:	1 to 99
# People Infected:	896
# States Reporting Outbreaks:	36 and District of Columbia
# People Hospitalized:	107

Investigators Say Produce Industry Needs to Modernize Its Record-Keeping

Kathy Means, vice president of governmental relations and public affairs for the Produce Marketing Association, says that the risk of getting salmonella from tomatoes is "minimal," because saintpaul is a very rare strain. (WebMD, 7/01/08)

But tracing the origin of the outbreak has been slow and difficult, because record-keeping is inadequate. To make detection easier, the industry needs to...

move away from keeping just paper records
update its tracking system
know everyplace the produce goes-from farm to consumer

Tracing Tainted Tomatoes Takes a Lot of Detective Work

"[Tracing a contamination source] is like a detective trying to solve a case. We often have to rely on people's memories about things that are not very memorable: what they ate last week or the week before," said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CNN, 7/01/08)

So far, the investigation has found the following:

80% of the people in the initial study recalled eating dishes containing tomatoes.
More than 50% of all cases diagnosed were in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.
Most clusters of infected people ate at Mexican restaurants.
Other food, maybe jalapeno peppers, cilantro and green onions (all commonly used in salsas and guacamole) could be involved.

Because saintpaul is such a rare strain of salmonella, the source of contamination will likely be a single farm or packing shed.

"It's going to come down to one thing, ultimately," said Means. "The faster we get to that one thing, the faster everybody can put the specter of bad tomatoes behind them." (WebMD, 7/01/08)

FDA Says-Continue to Follow Safety Precautions

Advice on avoiding salmonellosis remains the same:

Stick with cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold on the vine and homegrown tomatoes, or Roma, red and round tomatoes from states and countries posted on the FDA website.
Use proper precautions during food preparation.
Throw away any questionable food.

Question for Readers:

Has the salmonella outbreak affected your eating habits? How?

Most produce suppliers repackage tomatoes. Repacking works as follows:

A customer makes a specific request-for example, a box of small, ripe tomatoes.
The distributor doesn't have a box containing all small, ripe tomatoes.
The distributor goes through several boxes, from several sources, pulling out all the small, ripe tomatoes.
If some of the tomatoes are from a contaminated source, all the tomatoes in the box may become contaminated.

"Repacking . . .may be as common as 90 percent . . . , but we don't have confirmation that the number is that high. Obviously this complicates the trace-back," Dr. Acheson said.

(Source: Washington Post, 7/02/08)

United Fresh [Produce Association] believes that for maximum consumer confidence we need mandatory federal standards for fresh produce. Those standards need to be commodity-specific, because one size does not fit all. They should be risk-based, and they should be flexible enough to change as science catches up.

—David Gombas, senior vice president for food
safety and technology of the trade group representing
American fruit and vegetable growers.
(CNN, 7/01/08)