The Salmonella Mystery Continues
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It might be tomatoes; and it might not be tomatoes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not know what is causing the salmonella. The investigation into the source of the salmonella broadens to other produce, as the number of reported illnesses reaches a thousand people - with the numbers increasing:
“…Officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it is premature to declare jalapenos the lead suspect, and still list it with tomatoes, cilantro and serrano peppers as one of the common salsa ingredients under investigation. Officials also have stepped up testing of cilantro and serrano peppers, but “there is no specific ‘prime suspect,’ ” FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek said.
As the number of illnesses tops 900, the stakes are high. If federal officials wait too long for proof, there’s a risk that more people will get sick. But if they single out the wrong food, a mistake could cost an industry millions of dollars. The tomato industry says it already has lost $100 million.”
link: Salmonella probe turns from tomatoes to jalapenos
This means that other food sectors, in addition to the tomato industry, might suffer a staggering financial set back. Understandably, people who are producing these perishable items are angry at the handling of this salmonella outbreak. As this investigation drags on, as millions of dollars are lost and as people are becoming ill from some food source, it is abundantly clear that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration needs a major overhaul. Presently, the agency can not fulfill its mandate of protecting citizens from unsafe products. This salmonella problem is a clarion call.
Catherine Forsythe
3 Comments
Sean
July 9th, 2008
at 10:35am
“This salmonella problem is a clarion call.”
First, to put it in perspective. 900 people out of 300 million is 0.0003% of the population. Is the sky really falling? Or do we sacrifice a whole industry for what is amounting to a wild goose chase witchhunt where we start pulling stuff off the market on a WAG and then find out it was gummy bears contaminated by a water drip from a well contaminated by chicken farm runoff (Intentionally ludicrous example). Hopefully a little more science went into the choice, but I’m starting to think not.
Our major problem here is that we are treating symptoms, not original causes. The last beef recall was a pure waste, it happened on Independence Day weekend, and by the time everyone got the message, if they weren’t distracted by the holiday, the stores had already sold the meat and the consumers eaten it. The system is falling down on inspection for clean food production and food handling operations, failing to prevent bad food from entering the supply in the first place.
Where is sewage or agricultural runoff getting on the product? Jalapenos and tomatos have pretty tough skins and are easily washable. If this is pre-made salsa, contaminated water in the factory would be a higher probablility, once again tracing back to poor inspection of food handling.
CDC information on Salmonella http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/salmonellosis_gi.html
ken maxwell
July 9th, 2008
at 3:39pm
People take this salmonella outbreak very seriously. I got the poisoning last year, and in 9 days lost a total of 60 pounds, all my strength, the ability to do a job I have done for 40 years, and most of my self esteem. Salmonella is a very serious problem, and most infections can be stopped by making food handlers wash their hands, that includes people who harvest the food. Cook your food thoroughly, and WASH YOUR HANDS!!!
Sean
July 9th, 2008
at 9:44pm
Lessons I learned growing up on a cow and a half dairy and vegetable farm:
Cleanliness may not be next to godliness, but it sure goes a long way to ensuring you don’t get sick. Wash your hands and wash your food.
All animals on this planet are symbiots. We eat food, our intestinal bacteria eats some of this food and we live off the combined nutrients derived from this process. In the chain, often herbivores eat things that have no direct food value, and actually live off the bacteria that break down what they eat.
Plants are also symbiots, they often are dependent on fungi living in the soil to deliver a lot of nutrients in exchange for sugars that the fungi cannot produce.
Cook your pork well. Trichnosis is a very painful, dehabilitating condition where nematodes crawl through your body and encyst in your muscles. One known case in our county, 4 people infected.
Healthy cows and e. coli are one and the same thing. My siblings and I would have died long ago if e. coli was deadly. Have your cows tested for Tuberculosis, Brucellosis, etc. There are far worse things out there. Healthy cows don’t eat their own poop. Run a drag harrow through the field every so often to break up the hummocks so they will eat all the grass.
Wash your eggs, cook your chicken to well done and cook your eggs. Salmonella isn’t very pleasant to ingest and some strains are deadly (typhoid). Healthy chickens fed on clabbered milk develop a better bacteria mix in their intestines that tends to dilute out Salmonella.
Horses carry tetanus, get your shots.
Treat all puncture wounds immediately. Gangrene (clostridium infections) can result and closely thereupon septicemia.
Keep all hamburger/ground meat refridgerated and cook till well done, if you did not practice cleanliness, the grinding process thoroughly mixes all contaminants into your sausage/hamburger.
Improperly canned products and botulism go hand in hand. If it lost its seal, dig a hole and bury it, you don’t want your dog to die anymore than you do.
Nobody ever died of eating a wormy apple, it’s just protein.
Things I’ve learned later in life:
All this changes when you go into the industrial operations used to produce meat. Herbivores get fed meat byproduct, the cattle are fed corn diets and basically are being killed before they die of natural causes from an unnatural diet. Cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. have to be fed vast quantities of antibiotics to prevent epidemics from wiping them out in these overpopulated industrial environments. In this process, the healthy mix of bacteria gets weeded down to virulent strains that are antibiotic resistant and in their mutations to survive often have bad side effects for anyone who accidentally injests them. Then when their manure gets mixed with water to make fertilizer or just escapes as agricultural runoff you get contamination of your vegetable crops down the line.