The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not identified tomatoes as the definite source of the salmonella problem. Other products are being investigated as the source of the outbreak:
“…Raw jalapeños, serranos and cilantro, key ingredients in Mexican cooking, are now being linked along with tomatoes to the outbreak of salmonella that has sickened more than 1,000 people nationwide and forced grocers to pull produce from their shelves.
On Wednesday, experts with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned seniors and people with compromised immune systems – the most at risk – to avoid eating the raw peppers and cilantro.”
link: Health warning widens to peppers
This has been an ongoing problem since April and no definitive answer has been found yet. One comment about this salmonella problem is that this impacts only a small per centage of the American population. Only a small number, in relation to the general population, has become ill.
So far there has been one salmonella related death. The point is that even if a small segment of the population is impacted, the problem is serious. The illnesses and the time to identify the source of the problem show that the government agencies are not funded adequately nor staffed appropriately to provide the necessary security to the national food supply.
The number of people who have become ill now exceeds a thousand, even with warnings issued. The industry sector producing and shipping the tomatoes estimates that the damage has exceeded a hundred million dollars. The progress is that more products are added to a warning list. The question to the commenter would be ‘at what point do you consider this product safety concern as a serious issue?’.
Catherine Forsythe
