Yet More Suspects In Salmonella Probe

Three Common Salsa Ingredients Now Suspects In National Food-Borne Outbreak

(CBS/ AP)  Think of your favorite recipe for salsa. Three common ingredients now are suspects in the salmonella poisonings that have become the nation's largest food-borne outbreak in at least a decade.

And therein lies the frustration. Seven weeks into their investigation, federal health officials aren't shortening the list of potential culprits but adding to it. Now jalapeno pepper producers are being probed alongside tomato distributors, and even fresh cilantro is under suspicion, too.

"I wish I could have a crystal ball and say it's one of those three things," Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's food safety chief, told AP Television on Thursday.

"This has gone on longer and has been more complicated than anything I've worked on at FDA."

Indeed, it's quite a departure from the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach, a mystery solved in about two weeks.

"We really, really got spoiled, if you will, with the spinach outbreak," Dr. Robert Tauxe, food safety chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press.

There aren't as many spinach lovers as tomato lovers. And the spinach consumers remembered eating came in bags, often still left in their refrigerators - that bore bar codes that were as good a clue as a fingerprint in helping investigators race to the very field that had been contaminated.

This time around, the suspects seldom are left over in the refrigerator or bear individual bar codes. Also, the victims are having a harder time remembering.

They say, "'Well, I'm not sure, I may have had guacamole, or a garnish," Tauxe said.

But this outbreak is lasting an unusually long time, with a record 1,065 cases confirmed by Thursday - the first of whom fell sick April 10 and the latest so far on June 26.

That makes the toll of the current salmonella outbreak far surpass recent large outbreaks of any food-borne disease: salmonella linked to peanut butter in 2006 and hepatitis A from green onions in 2003. It's not quite as big as one caused by cyclospora-tainted raspberries in the mid-1990s.

The scope is bad both for public health and a battered tomato industry that estimates losses at $100 million. Yet it is giving federal investigators some apparently valuable new clues.

Early on, lots of individuals got sick, not clusters of people who all ate at the same restaurant or catered picnic. But by mid-May and continuing well into last month, those clusters of a few people sickened in the same spot were appearing. That's helpful for disease detectives, who find it easier to trace suppliers for a few restaurants than hundreds of stores and markets.

Plus, the CDC just finished comparing 144 people who got sick in June with 287 people who live near them but didn't fall ill.

Investigators searching for patterns have found at least one - all of the people who became ill in June were more likely to have eaten raw tomatoes, fresh jalapeno peppers and cilantro, though not always in the same dish, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella.

What does that mean?

"We are quite sure that neither tomatoes nor jalapenos explain the entire outbreak at this point. ... We're presuming that both of them have caused illness," Tauxe said.

That has the FDA looking furiously for intersections between peppers and tomatoes. Perhaps there are farms that grew tomatoes earlier in the spring and then switched to pepper harvesting, or distribution centers that handled both types of produce and contaminated incoming produce, Acheson said.

The government's advice for now is to continue avoiding certain raw tomatoes - red round, plum and Roma - unless they were grown in areas cleared of suspicion.

Plus, people at highest risk of severe illness from salmonella should not eat raw jalapeno and serrano peppers, the CDC advised. The most vulnerable are the elderly, people with weak immune systems and infants. Serranos are on the list because they're hard to distinguish from jalapenos.

Did the CDC just miss a pepper connection early on?

"It's very hard for us to say that peppers were absolutely not part of the problem initially. They may have been part of the problem initially but not large enough to catch the attention of the investigations," Tauxe acknowledges.

But there are clusters of illness where jalapenos "simply were not on the menu," he added.

And Acheson stressed Thursday: "There was and is very compelling evidence that tomatoes were contaminated with salmonella."

The geography offers a potentially good clue too. Patients live in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and even Canada - where three people got sick while traveling to the U.S. and a fourth case is under investigation. Most of the sick are in the Southwest, while parts of the Northwest have no cases and parts of the Southeast few.

"That begs the question is there something about the distribution of the product that contributes to that," Acheson said. "We've been trying to tease that apart."

[toolmangler-2009]

No surprise Obama wants our kids to all learn Spanish. Guess they got to him too.
Posted by pjones501 at 04:26 AM : Jul 11, 2008


I have no problem with learning a second language. After all it''s a survival tool.When Big Brother
becomes the known fact instead of the hidden one he now is, having a second language will be a help when you flee to another country in order to keep living.

[mjvw2]

LEARN TO GROW A VEGETABLE GARDEN, LEARN TO CAN FOOD, LEARN TO BUILD A SMOKE HOUSE TO SMOKE GAME MEATS. "DONT FAIL TO PLAN!"

Posted by witchsince91

But the democrats want my guns and tell me my smoke house is contributing to global warming

[mjvw2]

Oh by the way the market is falling over 200 points, and gas hit 146+ again today, and Fanny Mae and Freddy are gonna cost all of us taxpayers a small fortune before it is over.

Posted by renrivers

So lets raise taxes and really screw it up.

[Renegade.Rivers]

These are the Democrat Crazies that want to run the country. Nothing but Hate and Rage and Insanity. This is the New Change for America that O''''Bama and the Democrats are promising us.

Posted by demslie2u

Well I wouldn''t want to burst any bubbles, but the Republicans now in power are some of the biggest liars in history. Now they are trying to pass old flipper, McInsane off on us as a someone we would want as a leader. Oh, by the way, I am not saying there isn''t any lying Democrats in power either. A 9% approval rating speaks for itself. As does the primary candidates they offered, Billary and Osama
or is it Obambi, anyway, they were both just as worthy of the title of flip-flopper''s as is McInsane and when I am ask who I will vote for, I have to tell them I am still hoping for a miracle.

As for gardening and such, I am a firm believer that the more self sufficient one is, the better off they are and will be, no matter the situation, especially now, when things sure don''t look good, and from what I am seeing, it don''t look like it will get any better, anytime soon. Oh by the way the market is falling over 200 points, and gas hit 146+ again today, and Fanny Mae and Freddy are gonna cost all of us taxpayers a small fortune before it is over.

[witchsince91]

DONT WORRY ABOUT YOUR 401K;
DONT WORRY ABOUT YOUR RETIREMENT;
DONT WORRY ABOUT YOUR STASH OF GOLD AND SILVER COINS;

BECAUSE,

IF YOU DONT LEARN TO GROW AND CAN YOUR OWN FOOD, YOU ARE GOING TO BE UP SH*T-CREEK DURING THE NEXT HURRICANE KATRINA, OR WEATHER RELATED, OR TERRORIST TYPE U.S. CRISIS. YOU WILL HAVE TO GO DOWN TO THE WALMART AND FIGHT OVER THE LAST CAN OF BEANS LIKE DURING THE NEW ORLEANS HURRRICANE,..OR YOU''LL HAVE TO PIMP OUT YOUR WIFE OR DAUGHTER FOR AQ CAN OF TUNA FOR YOUR FAMILY.

DO IT NOW ,..LEARN TO GROW A VEGETABLE GARDEN, LEARN TO CAN FOOD, LEARN TO BUILD A SMOKE HOUSE TO SMOKE GAME MEATS. "DONT FAIL TO PLAN!"

ITS GOING TO BVE SO FUNNY WATCHING THESE "SUITS" ON THE FINACIAL CHANNELS STARVE TO DEATH WITH TONS OF MONEY STASHED IN THEIR HOMES AND SAFE-DEPOSIT BOXES.

LEARN TO GROW YOUR OWN FOOD, EVEN YOU JUST START WITH A TOMATO PLANT IN YOUR WINDOW OR ON YOUR PATIO. BUY SOME LAND, EVEN A 1/2ACRE(THAT COULD SUPPORT A SMALL FAMILY W/POTATOS, BEANS AND CABBAGE/GREENS.)

[observer2020]

It is the pharmacy''s fault if they give you the wrong medicine, though. Or, if they give you something different, and in less quantity, so they can sell it behind closed doors, themselves. Watch what is given to you and count your pills. It''s happened to me way too many times to count...or, let''s put it this way, they''ve succeeded a couple times, but no more. I look at the lables and count the pills in front of them now.

[tootall10142]

This is the summer of our discontent,some heads should roll but probably wont. It has become the respnsibility of each person to KNOW WHAT THEY ARE PUTTING IN THIER MOUTH!Dont be a ignorant consumer educate youself about the food and especially the meds you get from your pharmacy,remember these people are legal drug dealers if you get harmed by a drug you are prescribed, the pharmacy isnt held responsible its your call not thiers.

[shanev137]

The FDA, like FEMA and Homeland Insecurity, is a complete joke.

[shanev137]

How can anyone take anything seriously that the FDA says.

[pjones501]

It''s in the dam salsa coming from Mexico. The government has known it all along and let the American tomato growers take the blame for it costing them millions. Once again, the government is protecting every country we trade with over protecting their own people. Poison laced toys from China, still coming over here too. Bad medicine too, no more inspectors though. See a pattern here don''t you??

No surprise Obama wants our kids to all learn Spanish. Guess they got to him too.

[oneworldusa]

The key is tracking the people from Canada who got sick while visiting the US. There should be some average time lapse between ingestion and onset of symptoms. Unless there are concurrent issues, with 1,000 cases to look at, it really shouldn''t be all that hard to figure out.

[grammawhamma]

Whatever. So some people got sick...how many died? It''s riskier behavior to get in your car everyday...yet we are all doing that!

[nothappyatall]

"Seven weeks into their investigation, federal health officials aren''t shortening the list of potential culprits "

Gee, gives me real confidence that if terrorists contaminated the food supply with something, our goVArnMenT will immediately discover the cause and within the hour stop it... NOT!