Cause of Salmonella Outbreak Found
Link Identified in Food Poisoning Between Water Supply and Peppers
Jul 31, 2008
An Associated Press report from July 30, 2008 quotes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Center for Foodborne Illness Director Dr. Lonnie King as saying, "We have a smoking gun, it appears". Dr. David Acheson from the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Chief of Food Safety called the finding a key breakthrough in the case of recent food poisonings that sparked the nationwide tomato scare.
The Smoking Gun
Acheson announced that the farm is located in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The peppers identified as having the same Salmonella strain responsible for the 1,300 plus illnesses are Serrano peppers that, along with jalapeno peppers, are popular in Mexican style dishes.
Samples of irrigation water and Serrano peppers gathered at the farm were contaminated with the same strain of Salmonella. Irrigation water is a known potential source of produce contamination . The FDA had previously linked a contaminated jalapeno pepper to a farm in another portion of Mexico called Tamaulipas. That investigation is still ongoing. Both farms shipped out of the same packing facility, which raised the question of contamination at the packing plant.
Costly Tomato Scare
When questioned about the costly implication of tomatoes as the culprit earlier in the outbreak, Federal officials still did not rule out the possibility that some tomatoes could have been contaminated with Salmonella bacteria.
The dumping of tons of tomatoes earlier in the investigation resulted in over $300 million dollars in losses to the food industry, but at that point in the investigation tomatoes were clearly implicated states the AP article. Officials did not deny the possibility that the outbreak could have been caused by more than one kind of contaminated produce.
Potential Reforms to Prevent Further Outbreaks
The problem of foodborne bacteria has many causes, affecting food production at the growth, harvest, packing and shipping stages. Imported produce and food have recently come under increased scrutiny by food safety experts due to the recent large scale outbreaks and especially the recent catastrophic losses to the tomato industry.
Lawmakers are now considering how to prevent future large outbreaks of these types of foodborne illness, according to the AP report. Those reforms include improving the communication between investigating agencies and the food industry, imposing standards for good agriculture, and improving the tracing system of produce.
The AP report further states that at a Congressional Hearing to investigate the problems surrounding foodborne bacteria and the recent food poisonings, the current food safety system was described as "outbreak roulette", with one spin of the wheel resulting in bankruptcy or sickened loved ones.
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