Feds Expand Salmonella Saintpaul Search To Non Tomato Foods

Featured Article
Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Also Included In: Nutrition / Diet;  Public Health
Article Date: 02 Jul 2008 - 9:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday, Tuesday, that it was no closer to finding the source of the Salmonella Saintpaul contamination that has now sickened over 850 people and put over 150 in hospital throughout the US since April and that it was enlarging the search to include foods that are served with tomatoes. Up until that announcement the agency was focused on tracking the source to a producer of raw red tomatoes, including raw red plum, red Roma, round red tomatoes, and products containing them.

The FDA said it would be "irresponsible" at this stage to say what other foods they were adding to their testing and searching list, and it was not a case of dropping raw red tomatoes from the list of likely suspects but more a case of adding other foods to it, as Dr David Acheson, the FDA's associate commissioner for food protection said at a news teleconference reported by the Washington Post:

"The tomato trail is not getting cold, rather other items are getting hotter."

According to a news report in USA Today, the FDA has also activated its Food Emergency Response Network, allowing them to enlist another 100 labs to boost efforts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to enlarge the scope of the searching and testing to included foods typically consumed with tomatoes as well as the tomatoes themselves.

A food safety expert told USA today he wondered if the authorities would start looking at jalapeños, green onions, cilantro or white onions as possible sources of the Salmonella contamination.

Acheson said that although raw red tomatoes are often eaten raw, either whole or chopped up in salad, they are also used in other dishes, including salsas and pico de gallo.

The Food Emergency Response Network was started following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 to expand lab testing capability in the event of a biological terrorist attack. The Network was called on to support the E. coli in bagged spinach outbreak in 2006 and the melamine contaminated pet food scare in 2007.

Deputy director of foodborne, bacterial and mycotic diseases division at the CDC, Dr Robert Tauxe said at the teleconference that the CDC was also planning to look more closely at the 179 people who have been hospitalized after becoming infected with the rare strain of Salmonella, but did not explain his reasons.

Cases of infection by the rare strain of Salmonella Saintpauli have now been reported from 36 states and the District of Columbia. Fortunately no deaths have been reported in what appears to be the largest salmonella outbreak linked to a food product on record in the US.

Many of the infections have occurred in the Southwest of the United States, and over half of them are in the states of Texas (346), New Mexico (90) and Arizona (41), although Illinois has also reported quite a few (91). But Tauxe said it is very difficult to see a focused geographic pattern, as there continue to be cases reported from a number of different states.

The CDC said last week that it was not convinced that this outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul was caused only by tomatoes.

Chief of the CDC's Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch, Dr Patricia Griffin said at a special teleconference reported by the Washington Post that:

"Whatever this produce item is that's causing illness [it] is probably still out there making people sick."

Acheson said the FDA was considering putting pressure on the food industry to move to computer based records so investigations like this can happen much faster in future. He suggested that investigators were relying on "paper and pencil" and there must be a better way to "deal with traceability".

Jean Halloran of Consumers Union said that Congress should force the food industry to bring in full traceability of fruits and vegetables right back to where they were grown. According to USA Today, Halloran said:

"The FDA should not have to spend its modest resources trying to track down the source of food contamination."

"If FedEx can keep track of all its packages moving around the country, the produce industry should be able to do the same," she added.

In the meantime, said Acheson, consumers are advised to stick with the information announced earlier: avoid raw red plum, red Roma and round red tomatoes and dishes and products that contain them.

Click here for more information on Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak from the CDC.

Sources:Washington Post, FDA, USA Today.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today