Tomato business suffers, while FDA explores other foods in salmonella probe
12:49 p.m. Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The debate over tomatoes used to simply be about how to pronounce them. But now farmers of the bloodshot fruit are fuming, as health officials second guess the source of the salmonella outbreak.
"That's going to result in a total bloodbath. There's going to be tomatoes in the field that go overripe, that go un-harvested. And the entire industry is going to be crawling along to stay alive," tomato farmer Tom Deardorff said.
869 salmonella cases have been reported since April; that number is still growing and so too is the price being paid by the multi-billion-dollar tomato industry.
"Before you can say it's an outbreak and stop eating tomatoes, there should be certain evidence that's exactly true," Western Growers CEO Tom Nassif said.
Investigators have collected several thousand tomato samples. Not one has come back positive for the salmonella strain that's been making people sick. Meanwhile, many tomatoes that are now ripe for the picking are victims of a devastated commodity.
"Once you ring the bell you can't un-ring it. And the FDA rang it in a very loud fashion three or four weeks ago, and they haven't done anything to un-ring that bell," Deardorff said.
Interviews with the sick led officials to point the finger at tomatoes. But now the FDA is retracing its steps.
The Chicago Department of Public Health has identified a cluster of people who all contracted salmonella at Mexican restaurants.
"It may be another food like cilantro or green onions or something served with tomatoes that was just overlooked to begin with," Vanderbilt University Infectious Diseases Professor Dr. Dan Mishu Allos said.
Industry losses are now estimated at $100 million. Farmers are now asking for a congressional investigation into the warning.
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