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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Tomato Toll in the Thousands, CDC Says

Andrew Schneider, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has a blog post on CDC's estimate of how many people may actually have been sickened by the recent outbreak of salmonella in tomatoes:

The CDC reported last night that outbreaks of the saintpaul strain of salmonella has been documented in 28 states, with 277 people sick and 43 of those hospitalized.

And the federal disease detectives released this fascinating number: More than 8,000 people may have actually been sickened in this outbreak, but no one will ever know for sure.

"Most cases of salmonellosis are not reported because some people who are ill do not seek medical attention and not all patients who seek medical care submit specimens for culturing," said a CDC spokesperson.

Based on earlier extensive studies and extrapolations, the CDC has estimated that for every one case of salmonellosis reported there are 38 additional cases that are not reported.

As tomatoes from approved areas begin to return to stores and restaurants (a local Chipotle has brought back its mild tomato salsa, much to Reg•Watch's delight), FDA appears to have shed little light on the mystery. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, "Consumers and farmers have criticized health officials for the slow pace of the probe, which the FDA says is unavoidable because of the wide scope of the outbreak, the shaky memories of victims and the difficulties of tracing tomatoes. As a result, shoppers have shunned the fruit and growers have suffered plunging sales."

Thus is the public health and economic toll of FDA's broken down regulatory system.

Where's Congress?

While the growing complexity of the global supply chain and years of anti-government conservatism in Washington may have brought us to the point where food safety failures routinely make headlines, the Democratic-led 110th Congress is doing little to help.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit group that works on food safety and other important causes, has a list of food safety bills currently pending in Congress. CSPI lists 12 different bills, not one of which has cleared the committee stage.