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I’ve been blogging about this Salmonella outbreak for weeks. And it started a few weeks before the notoriety. The only thing new to report is that it may be something else! |
“Produce investigations are very difficult, because a lot of times, vegetables are eaten all together,” said Dr. Patricia Griffin, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. That makes it hard to trace back any one item to a source of contamination, she added. “We continue to keep an open mind about the possible source of this outbreak, as does FDA.”
Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration, agreed. “There is a strong epidemiological association with tomatoes,” but the agency is also “looking into other ingredients,” he said.
Acheson said FDA officials and tomato growers were involved in “a two-way dialogue.”
But, there’s obviously little useful record-keeping.
The CDC says the outbreak, which is linked to a rare form of bacteria called Salmonella Saintpaul, has spread to include 810 cases in 36 states and the District of Columbia. And there is no sign that it’s abating. “We are still getting reports of recent illnesses,” Griffin said.
The true incidence is probably much higher, because the agency has estimated that about 30 cases occur for every one that is reported.
We’ve learned that distributors often mix tomatoes from different farms, different states, even different countries in the same retail packaging. Wonderful.
Because of slipshod regulations, makeshift logistics, we can only confirm the FDA is the FEMA of food.
Saw a report on tv that several southern tomato growers will go out of business because they could not sell their produce–all on the general suspicion, nothing to do with THEIR actual tomatoes.
I think this may turn out to be much like FEMA–governmental agencies making a bad situation even worse and in the end doing nothing to be better prepared later.
See all the food stamps applied to Apples showing the Grower of Origin? I don’t know why they do that for apples all the time but similar tags have been proposed for produce from anywhere else in the world, and its been defeated.
Free Traders??–Republicans??–Paid off by Mexican Special Interests???—or simply Congress not doing their/our job? Your choice.
That type of Salmonella is transmitted via contaminated drinking water and it is commonly carried by frogs and rodents, which may come into contact with said water supply. Drought, is a common cause for tomato growers having to use “well” and “bore” water to supplement-irrigate crops. Lettuce growers, too. If I was involved,I would be looking for open water tables near centres of contamination, and signs of unlicensed irrigation.
Another year, another outbreak. A couple hundred people get sick, everyone panics, and a whole bunch of food is wasted. But don’t blame the FDA. That’s just shooting the messenger. I mean, they could always pass it off as one of the tens of thousands of cases of Salmonella poisoning that occurs every year, right? Not as much of an attention grabbing headline, but at least I’d be able to get tomatoes on my chicken sandwich.
#3–David==the messenger was not shot==the innocent voiceless farmers were. When a message is made up irresponsibly or garbled to the point of being misleading or flat out wrong from a source that charged with being accurate in its reporting, why yes, I think a few messengers should be appropriately counseled? I’m surprised there is not a manual in how to report outbreaks of anything?
If not there should be.
#1, most likely career government employees. Not everybody who works in the government is a political crony; in fact, most aren’t.
Well, this is all BUSH’S FAULT !!! To give his crony BILLIONAIRES AND MILLIONAIRES TAX CUTS, he had to LAY OFF FOOD INSPECTORS, JUST LIKE THERE WAS ***ONLY ONE INSPECTOR*** LOOKING AT KIDS TOYS FROM CHINA THAT WERE CONTAMINATED WITH LEAD !!! This time the contamination is SALMONELLA !!! Repukes have their PRIORITIES – ME FIRST, AND THE REST OF YOU CAN ***DROP DEAD*** (AS FORD SAID TO NYC!!!) !!! Now you know why America is READY FOR CHANGE, AND THE REPUKES WILL BE ***VOTED OUT OF OFFICES ALL ACROSS AMEIRCA*** !!! Americans are MAD AS HELL, AND WON’T TAKE ANY MORE !!!
I give my own tomatoes another 5 weeks and I’ll be eating them fresh off the vine. Until them I’ll make do with canned.
But it is a damn shame I can’t buy fresh tomatoes. It is even worse that no one knows where the tomatoes on the shelves came from.
Blame Congress, blame the white house, vote them out or blame yourself.
The FDA is the FEMA of food and no with the limited funds they get they can’t do their jobs even if they want to. It may well be that fruits need a stamp or packaging that indicates the place they were grown but rats, mice, or roaches might come in contact with food after it is harvested. You may need to wash it with soap and water and hope you have a strong immune system.
Even if we knew where the fruit was coming from the actually tie in with tomatoes is more or less so shaky that many or even most of the cases reported may have been from other sources and apparently only one in 30 cases is reported.
I can’t tell you how much I’ve been impressed by watching my government in action. They’d delete it for good reason if I did and it would serve no good purpose.
Have good day and may God bless and keep you.
this is bull.
i cant ever remember when contaminated food *ever* took the CDC more than 2days, 3 at max to figure out where it sourced from. -and a rare strain?, that should make it even easier
to narrow the search parameters and find. i’d laugh if it turned out to be a strain that’s man made, -and they still *didnt know* were it came from.
this is just some distraction/cover to get your eyes off the real ball…
Nice work Brownie !
My friends who own resturants have enjoyed not paying $40 a case for tomatos. Meanwhile my friends who grow tomatos localy are doing very good selling at the local farmers market. win-win.
Propaganda something the right way and it becomes fact. .. No one ever questions why a cattle producer president would block Canadian beef. Hell they have mad cow disease up there. .. Now as everyone who has ever been to Mexico knows, they shit in their water supply and we can’t drink it, or eat the produce that’s washed with it. .. But Senor Bush has a lot of friends in Mexico, so it can’t be their fault. Cover this up people. Cheney is the big thief, but don’t overlook the penny ante crap his stooge is pulling off.