The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced the results of an investigation by state and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigators, which found consuming tomatoes in restaurants as the cause of illnesses in the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak. To date, 21 states have reported 183 cases of illnesses to the CDC.

Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses.

Based on information currently available from the CDC, the investigation shows a peak in cases of illness in late September. This suggests that the outbreak is not ongoing. The agency believes that the tomatoes that caused the illnesses have at this point been consumed, destroyed or thrown out because they are perishable. Therefore, FDA does not believe a consumer warning about tomatoes on store shelves is warranted at this time.

Don't you just hate it when the government can't even get their story straight?

What store shelves? I thought they said the outbreak occurred in restaurants?

A consumer warning may not be warranted, but it would have been nice to know which restaurants were affected, then maybe we'd know which produce company to be leery of.

If they had contaminated food before, and no one checks their handling procedures, isn't it safe to say it will probably happen again, and soon?

Nice way to protect the citizens.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.