Why It Takes So Long

To Trace A Bad Tomato

WASHINGTON (AP) — Food and Drug Administration detectives had a hot lead, narrowing down on a grower who just might have supplied salmonella-tainted tomatoes. Then the patient changed her story: She’d eaten a round tomato, not a Roma one after all.

“We basically had to throw it all out and start over,” says Dr David Acheson, the agency’s food safety chief.

Why is it taking so long to find the source of those bad tomatoes? It largely boils down to the frailty of human memory and the mysteries of the tomato bin.

Unlike many other foods, tomatoes do not come with bar codes that let investigators quickly track their supplier. Consumers seldom even know what part of the world they were grown in.

Moreover, it can take two to three weeks between when someone ate a tainted tomato, got sick, got diagnosed and health authorities complete testing showing it’s the outbreak strain.

And that is if people bother going to the doctor. Few do. A common estimate is that there are 40 cases of salmonella for every one reported to the health authorities, warns Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Do the math — 228 officially listed illnesses in 23 states — and it is clear that “this is a very large nationwide outbreak,” she said.

Do some more math: The shelf life of tomatoes from the time they are picked is three to four weeks. The earliest known salmonella case was April 10, and the latest June 1. So while it is not clear that all the bad tomatoes are off the market, most illnesses struck in May — and no culprit tomatoes have been found sitting in anyone’s refrigerator.

Contrast tomatoes to the 2006 outbreak of E. coli in spinach. A supplier began recalls within days of the FDA’s warning. About two weeks later, the mystery was solved.

The helpful difference: The raw spinach came in bags that some patients still had in the refrigerator, bearing UPC codes that led investigators to a supplier and eventually to the exact field that had been contaminated by wild boars.

Three weeks into the salmonella probe — health authorities learned there was an outbreak on May 23, although tomatoes didn’t become a suspect until May 31 — authorities have run into a number of dead ends, like the woman who didn’t really remember what she ate.

Enough people did remember what they ate for authorities to know that the culprit had to be raw red plum, red Roma, or red round tomatoes. It has proven easier to rule a tomato-growing region innocent than guilty. Simply by using harvest and sales records, the FDA has cleared tomatoes from more than 30 states and countries — check for an updated list at www.fda.gov

Parts of Florida and Mexico remain leading suspects because they were supplying “the vast majority” of tomatoes sold in April and May in states where people got sick, Dr Acheson says.

The Produce Marketing Association, an industry group, earlier this year began pushing growers and suppliers to take a voluntary first step to make fresh produce more traceable in case of outbreaks: Putting codes on the boxes they are shipped in would help authorities track the different stops they make from farm to packer to supplier to store or restaurant.

A bigger change is coming as, thanks to a newly passed law, fresh produce later this year will start bearing labels that identify the foods’ country of origin. US-grown produce must bear the labels, too. About 60 percent of the top 40 produce items already bear some labeling, mostly brand-type advertising such as “Washington apples” or “Jersey fresh,” said PMA Vice President Kathy Means. But tomatoes are among the least labeled, and will have to change.

“The technology exists today that would allow for much better trace back of commodities like tomatoes, but it won’t be used until the industry is required to by the government,” said consumer advocate DeWaal.

Her Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the FDA almost two years ago to require all growers to have a written food-safety plan that included how they trace their produce. The FDA has not ruled on that petition; she calls Congress’s passage of country-of-origin labels a first step.

The FDA just asked Congress for an extra $125 million for food safety programs next year, and better traceback — along with more inspections and other contamination-prevention steps — are among Acheson’s plans for spending it.

But don’t assume a sticker saying what country tomatoes came from would have cracked the salmonella case, Dr Acheson stressed. It might even have complicated it if, say, a sick consumer swore he always buys California tomatoes but last week the store substituted ones from Mexico or Florida and he didn’t notice.

“You can wind up in a bad place because of that,” Dr Acheson said.

Ms Means agreed. “It is hard enough for folks to remember what they ate, let alone where it was from.”

Connecticut, Part Of Mexico

Cleared In Salmonella Probe

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has officially added Connecticut-grown tomatoes to its list of tomatoes that are not associated with the salmonellosis outbreak of recent weeks, Department of Agriculture Commissioner Philip Prelli and Department of Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell, Jr, announced this week. The commissioners are jointly applauding FDA for this action.

“This serves to reinforce our earlier statement that Connecticut tomatoes are safe,” Cmmsr Prelli said. “I hope that Connecticut consumers take note of this development and purchase their tomatoes from Connecticut growers.”

“Connecticut shoppers can now rest assured about buying our own locally grown tomatoes,” Cmmsr Farrell said. “Meanwhile, we continue our work with the FDA and the Connecticut Department of Public Health to ensure that all tomatoes sold in our state are problem-free.”

In related news, one part of Mexico — Baja California — has also been cleared of suspicion in the outbreak of salmonella-tainted tomatoes, which US officials said Monday now has sickened 277 people.

That is 49 more than had been counted last week, and the latest known illness struck June 5, reinforcing a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the outbreak is not over yet.

Five more states —Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina and Ohio — and Washington, D.C., have reported patients, up from 23 states last week, although some may have been infected while traveling. At least 43 people were hospitalized.

The best lead remains a cluster of nine illnesses listed last week among patrons of an unidentified restaurant. Food and Drug Administration investigators were at work Monday tracing records of the restaurant’s various suppliers, part of the painstaking work of cross-checking common suppliers for other parts of the country where people got sick.

The FDA is urging consumers nationwide to avoid raw red plum, red Roma, or red round tomatoes unless they were grown in specific states or countries that FDA has cleared of suspicion. Also safe are grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached.

 The FDA has said that central and southern Florida and parts of Mexico were supplying most of the tomatoes sold when the salmonella outbreak began in early April, and thus are leading suspects. But tomatoes from northern Florida are in the clear because they were not being harvested that long ago, and those tomatoes are arriving in stores now, often with state-issued certificates guaranteeing they were not implicated.

Likewise, the FDA cleared Baja California over the weekend. That’s because its harvest began April 26 and the earliest known patient in the salmonella outbreak fell sick on April 10, FDA food safety chief Dr David Acheson said Monday.

Testing of tomatoes, including those from various parts of Mexico, has not yet turned up any salmonella, Dr Acheson said.

Mexican Economy Secretary Eduardo Sojo said the Mexican government might seek compensation for the Mexican producers who are losing millions of dollars because they cannot export to the US.

“What we want is to get at the truth .... If the truth is that our country isn’t responsible for making people sick in the US, then they need to lift the restriction on Mexican tomatoes,” Mr Sojo said. “If this isn’t resolved soon, the impact on the national industry will be severe.”