FDA Finds Salmonella Strain at Second Mexican Farm
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Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP, July 31, 2008
The salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak has been found in irrigation water and in a sample from a batch of serrano peppers at a Mexican farm, federal health officials said.
Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety chief, called the finding a key breakthrough in the case, as did another health official.
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Acheson said the farm is in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Previously, the FDA had traced a contaminated jalapeno pepper to a farm in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Both farms shipped through a packing facility in Nuevo Leon, raising the possibility that contamination could have occurred there.
The FDA advised consumers to avoid raw serrano peppers from Mexico, in addition to raw jalapeno peppers from Mexico, and any foods that contain them.
In a statement Wednesday, Mexico’s Agriculture Department said it “rejects” the FDA’s conclusion that the source of the salmonella outbreak had been located in the Mexican farm’s irrigation water.
“The farm unit in question ended its harvest more than a month ago, so the sample they say they have lacks scientific validity” because the sample “was taken recently from a tank holding rain water that was not used in production,” the statement said.
“The government reiterates its call for the FDA to use information responsibly and, above all, to base it on scientific evidence,” the statement concluded.
Acheson and other officials were grilled at a congressional hearing about why the investigation originally focused on tomatoes. Industry representatives complained that they have lost more than $300 million and had to dump tons of perfectly good tomatoes they could not sell because of government warnings. The probe was slowed even more because FDA investigators were unfamiliar with the workings of the tomato industry and were reluctant to share information, they said.
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“I don’t think we can say that (tomatoes) were needlessly dumped,” Acheson told reporters after the hearing. “The early part of the investigation clearly implicated tomatoes.”
The outbreak has sickened more than 1,300 people since April.
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Lawmakers are considering a range of reforms to prevent future outbreaks and speed their investigation. These include improving communication between investigators and the industry, imposing standards for good agricultural practices and improving traceability.
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(Posted on July 31, 2008)
Comments
It has really been the states’ various agencies (Minnesota and N. Carolina come to mind) that have uncovered the “Mexican connection” in this debacle. The feds have contorted themselves to the ends of the earth to avoid producing any negative publicity on anything the least bit Mexican.
Posted by underdog at 6:53 PM on July 31
The problem is the jalapeno plant. We need a public information campaign warning America of the dangers.
Posted by at 7:59 PM on July 31
When Country of Origin labeling is implemented in September, 2008 in the U.S., the problem will be solved. Simply avoid Mexican produce. What is the universal warning that everyone gets prior to going to Mexico? “Don’t drink the water.”
Produce is rinsed in water at harvest. In the U.S. most farms use chlorine in the water to kill bacterial organisms. In Mexico, they drain their bowels in the same water that they drink from. They often use the field as their toilet. It is amazing that there is not a lot more sickness from the produce that is brought in from Mexico. This is all part of the NAFTA agreement that our government and all of our financial bright lights say has been so beneficial to us. We are outsourcing our agriculture as we have done with so many other industries. This is contributing to our downfall as well as our ill health. Wake up people!
Posted by at 9:02 PM on July 31
You are seeing the beginning of the end of free trade with mexico here. What’s happening is simple. Those politicians in the US that dreamed of a North American Union are having that dream shattered by cold, cruel reality as it becomes more and more obvious that mexico not only never had any intention of holding up its end of the bargain, but simply can’t. As mexico slips further into becoming a de facto communist narco-state, free trade with them will become impossible. Simple contact with them will become extremely problematical. This is causing a shift in our policies with regard to immigration….first illegal, but soon to be legal.
There is no longer anything in it for them anymore. So they (most notably, George Bush) are abandoning the plan. I suspect you will see McCain give lip service to a guest worker program for awhile but that won’t ever go anywhere. A couple years from now, we’ll all be talking about the increased military presence on the border and the suspension of immigration from mexico, completely, due to all the violence.
Posted by at 11:53 PM on July 31
My dream is that someday, we will have absolutely no trade, no ties, no relations with Mexico at all. I’m sure there will be illegals sneaking over for years to come, but even our idiot lawmakers must see that this violent, corrupt, filthy, drug and crime infested blight to our south, must be ignored. The politicians are quick to speak out against countries who deny human rights such as China, Cuba and others, but never do they say anything about them in Mexico. For some reason, this hellhole has become the favored country as we hand out benefits, citizenship and all the perks as if they deserve them. Wonder just how many of our sterling congress people are claiming their thirty pieces of silver?
Posted by June at 10:35 AM on August 1
Mexican government, mostly composed of descendents of Spanish conquistadors and Aztec bloody warriors, expect that FDA keeps watching American citrizens contracting salomonella (and some of them dying of it) from Mexican food until they have a definite proof beyond reasonable doubt that the disease came from Mexico.
I bet, they wouldn’t mind if half of “Gringos” died this way while they play tricks denying the responsibility for the outbreak.
Posted by A Reader at 1:37 PM on August 1
It is not a mystery in the slightest that the salmonella is traced to Mexico. For example, it is a fact that 80 percent of the sewage that runs off into much of Mexico’s valleys where farming is done—is untreated. It goes from populated areas to less populated rural areas, largely untreated. This has been known by the U.S. government for years and years and it is silly as well as irresponsible in the extreme to pretend otherwise.
Posted by Bobby at 4:32 PM on August 1
The raw sewage in Mexican grown food destined for American markets is only half the story. Those plants are sprayed with cancer causing chemicals in quantities that would never pass an FDA inspection. But since virtually every federal regulatory agency is in bed with the industries they are tasked with regulating the FDA gives them a free pass.
Washington knows that treating cancer is big business and big business owns the congress. After all, what are the lives of millions of Americans who die from induced cancers every year compared to the vast profits generated by the health care racket?
Posted by at 1:57 PM on August 4
The benefits of NFTA: Almost everyone knows you don’t drink H20 in Mexico. This country uses human waste for ferlilizer.
Posted by von Stecker at 3:54 PM on August 4