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FDA DECLARES IT'S OK TO EAT TOMATOES AGAIN - UPDATE
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FDA DECLARES IT'S OK TO EAT TOMATOES AGAIN - UPDATE
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Topic: FDA DECLARES IT'S OK TO EAT TOMATOES AGAIN - UPDATE (Read 1210 times)
Bianca
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Posts: 41646
Re: FDA DECLARES IT'S OK TO EAT TOMATOES AGAIN
«
Reply #15
on:
July 17, 2008, 07:46:42 pm »
FDA declares it's OK to eat tomatoes again
By LAURAN NEERGAARD,
AP Medical Writer
July 17, 2008
WASHINGTON - It's OK to eat all kinds of tomatoes again, the U.S. government declared Thursday — lifting its salmonella warning on the summer favorites amid signs that the record outbreak, while not over, may finally be slowing.
Hot peppers still get a caution: The people most at risk of salmonella — including the elderly and people with weak immune systems — should avoid fresh jalapenos and serranos, and any dishes that may contain them such as fresh salsa, federal health officials advised.
Investigators still don't know what caused the salmonella outbreak, which now has sickened 1,220 people in 42 states — the earliest falling ill on April 10 and the latest so far on July 4.
But Thursday's move, coming as the tomato industry estimates its losses at more than $100 million, doesn't mean that tomatoes harvested in the spring are cleared. It just means that the tomatoes in fields and stores today are safe to eat, said Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's food safety chief.
"This is not saying that anybody was absolved," Acheson said. But, "as of today, FDA officials believe that consumers may now enjoy all types of fresh tomatoes available without concern of becoming infected with salmonella Saintpaul," the outbreak strain.
Early on, there was good evidence linking certain raw tomatoes to the sick, Acheson stressed. Yet inspectors haven't found the outbreak strain of salmonella Saintpaul on any farms, in suspect areas of south Florida and parts of Mexico, where they've managed to trace tomatoes thought to have been eaten by patients.
As the outbreak stretched into last month, more evidence emerged against fresh jalapenos — the FDA's hottest lead for now. The agency sent inspectors to a Mexican packing house that supplied peppers linked to a cluster of those illnesses.
Also still on the suspect list is fresh cilantro.
Separately Thursday, North Carolina officials who were investigating some salmonella Saintpaul cases linked to a Charlotte-area restaurant announced a recall of jalapenos and avacados shipped to that state from a Texas food supply company. More tests are needed to see if the salmonella found in two samples is the outbreak strain, or another variety.
There are signs that the outbreak is slowing, said Dr. Robert Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC charted the dates when the ill say they fell sick. Between April and mid-May, illnesses steadily rose. Between May 20 and June 10, the outbreak hit a plateau, with about 33 people a day becoming ill. From June 11 to June 20, that dropped to 19 people a day becoming ill.
Those are the latest available statistics, because it can take two weeks or longer for the CDC to receive confirmation that someone who is sick actually has the implicated salmonella strain.
For every salmonella case the CDC confirms, it estimates there are 30 to 40 more that go undocumented, perhaps because people don't see a doctor or undergo the right testing.
How could two different types of produce be contaminated with what is a rare type of salmonella?
One possibility is that a large farm grew tomatoes in one section and peppers in another, and both went through a common washing station with contaminated water, Acheson said.
"Bear in mind this is not following the trail of a regular old produce outbreak," he said. "There's something else going on here that is a little unusual. You need to think outside the box."
The tomato industry — which held an unprecedented meeting with FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and other officials on Monday — welcomed the announcement.
"We have long been confident that Florida's tomatoes were not associated with the salmonella Saintpaul outbreak," said the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, whose farmers are deciding whether to start planting for a fall tomato harvest. "Tomatoes from Florida's growing regions have been gone from the marketplace for weeks, so they could not have been the source of the contamination."
In Monday's meeting, the industry urged FDA to share more details of its investigation so producers could offer more possibly helpful information. If the sick were more likely to fall ill from chain restaurants than mom-and-pop establishments, for instance, the industry could help point FDA toward different lines of suppliers, explained Kathy Means of the Produce Marketing Association.
The FDA promised to consider the request.
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Bianca
Superhero Member
Posts: 41646
Re: FDA DECLARES IT'S OK TO EAT TOMATOES AGAIN
«
Reply #16
on:
July 19, 2008, 01:47:05 pm »
Tomato growers: Salmonella scare damages industry
By STEVE SZKOTAK,
Associated Press Writer
July 19, 2008
RICHMOND, Va. - The 6,000 acres of tomatoes grown on Virginia's sea-swept Eastern Shore were never implicated in the national salmonella outbreak — they were still on the vine weeks after people starting getting sick.
Still, that hasn't made much difference to tomato broker Batista Madonia III, who has seen sales and prices plummet in the wake of a salmonella outbreak that sickened people in 42 states and left the nation's tomato industry feeling woozy as well.
Since the government announced it was investigating whether tomatoes caused the outbreak that began in April, the nation's tomato industry estimates it has lost more than $100 million. Health investigators have not able to find tomatoes that contained the salmonella strain that sickened 1,220 people, and the government on Thursday lifted its salmonella warning involving tomatoes.
The move hasn't brightened the outlook of the $1.3 billion industry, and the stigma and uncertainty of the salmonella's origin are likely to add to its losses.
"The damage has been done. I don't think we'll ever get over it," said Madonia, sales manager for East Coast Brokers & Packers, which grows 4,000 acres on the Eastern Shore.
At height of summer, when tomatoes are a staple of the picnic season, growers have seen their plump red produce pulled from fast-food menus and passed over by shoppers.
"Summer is our biggest window of opportunity. If we miss this season, we can't get it back," said Tom Deardorff, a farmer in California, which grows the most tomatoes in the U.S. "It's hard to force people to eat tomatoes at Christmastime."
Deardorff, a Ventura County farmer who grows 600 acres of beefsteak and Roma tomatoes, worries it could take a year or more for consumers to regain their appetite for tomatoes.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted July 10-14 found that while three in four people remain confident about the overall safety of food, 46 percent said they were worried they might get sick from eating tainted products.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials believe that consumers may now enjoy all types of fresh tomatoes available without worrying about salmonella Saintpaul, the outbreak strain.
The elderly and people with weak immune systems — those most vulnerable to food-borne illnesses — should avoid fresh jalapenos and serranos, and any dishes that may contain them such as fresh salsa, federal health officials have advised.
Growers in Florida and Georgia, the No. 2 and 3 tomato-producing states, respectively, agreed the damage may be too much to overcome. The harvest is winding down or has ended in those states, and growers are deciding how many acres to devote to tomatoes during the fall.
"We're glad for Virginia, for North Carolina growers," said Charles Hall of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association. "But it's not going to help Georgia growers."
For states where tomatoes will be harvested in the weeks to come, the challenge will be overcoming consumer suspicion of the industry.
Kathy Means, spokeswoman for the Produce Marketing Association, said the industry will have to win back consumer confidence through lower pricing and pitching the health benefits of fresh tomatoes.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has worked to spread the news that the state-grown tomatoes are safe, even offering "Virginia Grown" labels to producers.
"I think people may still be a little leery about tomatoes of unknown origin, but the overwhelming reaction I've heard or heard about from the public is that they think Va. tomatoes are safe and they are enjoying them fully," the department's spokeswoman, Elaine Lidholm, said in an e-mail.
Madonia said it took too long for the government to rule out tomatoes in the salmonella outbreak.
"Every lot of tomatoes we pack we test for salmonella and e-coli," Madonia said. "God knows what I spend on rubber gloves and hairnets."
California broker Sam Carswell, who has been in the tomato business for 50 years, said he's lost 75 to 80 percent of his sales this season.
"From the beginning I had my suspicions it wasn't tomatoes because the only time they're touched is when they're picked and packed," said Carswell, who is shipping tomatoes for the Central California Tomato Growers Cooperative. "The government needs to put out the information as best they can. They put out the bad information quite a bit, but they just need to make sure everybody knows tomatoes are safe."
A fourth generation tomato grower in Florida said farm workers were already preparing 2,500 acres for the August planting.
"You deal with the elements, you deal with the cards your dealt, and you just move on," said Jim Granger, owner of Taylor and Fulton in Palmetto, Fla., on the central-Gulf Coast of the state.
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