You say tomato

In mid-May a salmonella outbreak sickened more than 1,000 people, prompting the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to caution consumers against eating tomatoes, the suspected culprit. In July it was discovered that the actual cause of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak was probably not tomatoes but most likely jalapeño peppers. So why did it take so long to determine the cause of the outbreak? According to a story in the Washington Post, lack of communication between local and national health agencies is partly to blame, as well as the difficulties in tracing the distribution paths of the tomatoes. Though warnings of a possible salmonella outbreak first surfaced in late May, the Food and Drug Administration didn’t alert consumers about the contaminated peppers until July 9. In the meantime, tomato growers lost more than $100 million.

Do you think it took health officials too long to determine the cause of the salmonella outbreak? Did you stop eating tomatoes because of the warnings? Did you continue to eat hot peppers? How safe do you think our food supply is?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Public Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.