Consumer Affair Tainted tomatoes may come from Florida or Mexico
By Ben Wasserman
Jun 21, 2008 - 10:52:01 AM
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SATURDAY JUNE 20, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- After more than
one month of struggling, the Food and Drug Administration has finally had some
clue as to where the tomatoes that caused the ongoing salmonella outbreak came
from. Now it’s official that Florida and Mexico are prime suspects.
On June 20, the FDA announced on its website that "the
agency has completed the traceback for some of the tomatoes associated with the
outbreak.
The agency has been able to
trace the pathway of some tomatoes from the point of purchase or consumption to
each point on the distribution chain down to certain farms in Mexico and
Florida."
Now the agency is narrowing, not widening the investigation.
Teams of multi-disciplinary experts will be dispatched to both Mexico and
Florida to conduct joint inspection of the farms and other critical points on
the supply chain where the tomatoes may have been tainted.
Regulators in Mexico and Florida will join the FDA for the
investigation. In the meantime, the FDA will continue securitize samples of tomatoes
and conduct traceback activities.
But according to William Marler, an attorney based out of
Seattle, Washington who claimed to have been contacted by a dozen of people who
fell ill after eating tomatoes, the contamination is home grown in Florida, but
imported from Mexico.
As follows, Marler cited on his blog on June 200 from an
interview of Dr. David Acheson the FDA food safety agent with Fox News Service:
"The
epidemiological investigation has narrowed the problem to raw red plum, red
Roma or red round tomatoes. And the evidence suggests the tainted fruit came
from Florida, where farmers were harvesting when the earliest known victim fell
ill on April 10.
Florida "fits
with the time frame," and investigators have not found evidence that could
rule out the state, David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate
commissioner for foods, said Thursday in a conference call with reporters.
He said contrary to
some earlier reports, he knows of no evidence showing tainted fruit came from
Mexico."
Early, one cluster of nine illness associated with eating
tomatoes at two restaurants of the same chain was probed by health officials of
Illinois state and the FDA.
Another
cluster was also reported in New York City.
On June 20, the FDA said a new cluster of illnesses linked
to consumption of tomatoes had merged in Texas recently. The agency hoped that
this would provide further information on the source of the contamination.
The salmonella outbreak linked to consumption of raw red
tomatoes has resulted illnesses in 552 people in 32 states and the District of
Columbia, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least
53 hospitalizations resulted from the salmonella outbreak, but no one died.
Editor's note; The outbreak may have caused some inconvenience to some grocery stores. Yesterday reports came to say that tomatoes disappeared from a local store in Portland, Oregon, which usually sells lots of produce from Florida and California.