FDA investigation broadens beyond tomatoes

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

The government Saturday said that it has begun looking at jalapeno peppers as a possible cause of the record salmonella outbreak, which has been blamed on tomatoes and caused widespread damage to the tomato industry in the U.S. and Mexico.

The Food and Drug Administration also said it had begun to look at ingredients used to make salsa, such as cilantro and Serrano peppers. Tomatoes continue to be investigated as well, spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek said.

On Tuesday, the government said it would test numerous other kinds of fresh produce commonly served with fresh tomatoes while insisting tomatoes remained the most likely culprit.

Officials have said some patients have told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention they ate raw tomatoes in fresh salsa and guacamole.

CDC spokesman Glen Nowak said Saturday that the agency's scientists are looking at salsa ingredients, including peppers, in their round-the-clock efforts to try to pinpoint the source of the outbreak.

"We don't rank the items we're looking at," Mr. Nowak said.

Investigators with the CDC have interviewed people sickened in June to find out what they ate and to compare their diets with those of healthy relatives and neighbors. Officials so far have not revealed early findings, but said they supported the investigation's new move.

Among the possibilities FDA has said it was exploring is whether tomatoes and other produce are sharing a common packing or shipping site where both might become contaminated, or whether multiple foods might be tainted while being grown on adjoining farms or with common water sources.

If the salmonella investigation eventually blames peppers or cilantro, tomato growers on both sides of the Rio Grande will be hopping mad.

The U.S. tomato industry has taken a $100 million hit as restaurants temporarily dropped tomatoes from their menus, and farmers have had to plow under their fields or leave crops to rot in packinghouses.

Mexico has not calculated its losses. But growers there worry they still may be under a shadow of suspicion as late as November, when greenhouses harvest their summer tomatoes.

A team of three FDA inspectors has gone through five farms in Mexico's western states of Jalisco and Sinaloa in the past two weeks, looking at all aspects of tomato production: the greenhouses where they are grown, the packing plants where they are shut into boxes and the shipping methods for the trip north to the U.S. They also plan to visit the northern state of Coahuila to finish their study.

The results can't come too soon for the three Mexican states that were targeted by the FDA, along with farms in Texas and Florida.

"We're demanding that they release those results as soon as possible so that Sinaloa can be cleared of any suspicion," said Manuel Tarriba, president of Sinaloa's Tomato Growers Association, whose state grows about 40 percent of all tomatoes sent to the U.S.

Bonanza 2001 farm in Autlan, Jalisco, which normally exports about 12,000 tons of tomatoes a year to the U.S., has hundreds of tons sitting in a warehouse near the Texas-Mexico border as demand has plummeted, said spokesman Luis Almejo.

Mr. Tarriba said his state expects to get results by the end of next week, after which it will begin a damage-control ad campaign in the United States.

"We have to gain back the consumers' trust," Mr. Tarriba said.

On Saturday, the FDA also increased the number of people reported being sickened in the outbreak to 943 reported cases nationwide, with at least 130 hospitalizations since mid-April after the first salmonella illnesses appeared. The outbreak has affected people so far in 40 U.S. states, more than a third of them in Texas. There also have been 225 cases reported since June 1 - evidence that the source likely has not been contained.