Tomato growers upset with FDA

Produce industry leaders, furious over the muddled federal investigation of a major salmonella outbreak that led to hundreds of millions of dollars of dumped tomatoes, are demanding the government be more certain the next time it banishes tons of vegetables to the garbage.

"They have this zero-tolerance policy, and it really doesn't make much sense," said Jim Prevor, a produce industry consultant and editor of Produce Business magazine. "They ignore all of these cases, but on the odd chance they get knowledge of (an outbreak), they become like Ahab pursuing the whale."

More than 1,200 people in 42 states have been sickened by a rare strain of salmonella bacteria, initially thought to be carried on tomatoes. But federal investigators this week declared all tomatoes now on the market safe to eat.

Americans have continued to get sick -- at a rate of about 20 people per day -- even after the Food and Drug Administration's June 7 warning to not eat three popular types of tomatoes drove restaurants, distributors and grocery stores to dump tomatoes by the crate at an estimated cost of $100 million to $250 million.

Epidemiologists say the kind of certainty the industry seeks is beyond the reach of their science. Investigators often must rely on the ability of outbreak victims to recall details of meals eaten weeks in the past. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employs some of the world's best food-safety investigators, but their conclusions are often somewhat uncertain and occasionally flat wrong.

"We have to do the right thing based on the evidence we have, even if it's not great evidence," said Tim Jones, the Tennessee state epidemiologist and a veteran outbreak investigator.

"You hate to hurt an industry and cause $100 million in damage. On the other hand, I don't think any of us could sleep if we. . . didn't say something and then a kid died the next day."

Robert Tauxe, the lead investigator for the CDC, said Thursday the government is less sure about the source of the outbreak than it was on June 7. The government added raw jalapeqo and serrano peppers to its list of suspects last week.

Field investigators still have not found one salmonella bacterium of the type tied to the outbreak, despite thousands of laboratory tests on tomatoes, peppers and other salsa ingredients.

Tom Nassif, chief executive of the Western Growers Association, a powerful industry group, suggested agencies be required to find a piece of produce carrying the pathogen linked to an outbreak before they issue a major food-safety warning.

"If they're going to do that kind of economic damage to a commodity group, then they should have a very firm foundation for making that determination," he said.

Nassif's group and others are asking Congress to compensate farmers, packers and others who lost money following the tomato warning.

About 40,000 salmonella infections are reported in the United States annually, according to the Global Infectious Disease and Epidemiology Network. Between 20 and 40 deaths per year are blamed on the bacteria, according to the latest figures available. The CDC estimates as many as 1.2 million salmonella infections go unreported each year.

Nearly all strains of salmonella bacteria originated in the guts of animals. A vegetable contaminated with salmonella has come into contact with feces or feces-tainted water.

"One way or another, poop got somewhere it didn't belong," Jones said.

Congressional hearings have been set for the end of the month.

(E-mail Jim Downing at jdowning(at)sacbee.com)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)