Public Relations

An immediate reporting and traceback system is essential to finding food-related disease outbreaks and ending them quickly. The ongoing tomato crisis is a perfect illustration of the need for faster outbreak identification.
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security introduced a multi-pronged approach to securing the country’s food supply. The agency established communication protocols among various agencies and research and monitoring institutes and encouraged food industries to be innovative and reevaluate their food safety guidelines.

In the four years since, a number of outbreaks involving produce, prepared foods and meats have gone undetected – or were kept quiet – for far too long. Pot pies, spinach, beef and now tomatoes have been implicated in diseases a month after people started getting sick, In the case of tomatoes, illnesses of the rare serotype of salmonella first began appearing in mid-April, but the outbreak was just appearing in the news media in early June – and the information was so vague that foodservice establishments pulled nearly every fresh and fresh-cut tomato product. By the second week of June, FDA announced that tomatoes from a handful of states and import countries were safe, but still had not determined the source of the contamination – not even the variety of tomato implicated. Months after people started getting sick, CDC and FDA began investigation other fresh items, and in July declared all tomatoes safe to eat.

Since the start of the outbreak, more than 1,000 cases have been confirmed, and it’s likely more were made sick but didn’t visit a doctor or check into a hospital. Tomatoes, which had been available as people were still getting sick, became hard to find and unavailable in some stores and restaurants.

For FDA to be effective, it has to identify outbreaks immediately and issue a response. Waiting weeks to identify and trace back cases endangers the public and causes more harm to the produce industry. I know FDA wants to have all the answers before making public announcements, but that’s rarely going to be possible -– just look at spinach. There still are many unanswered questions about the introduction and transmission of the E. coli-contaminated spinach leaves.

The industry is doing its best to provide growers and shippers with production and handling guidelines, but the agencies monitoring public health need to step up to the plate. The occurrence of a rare salmonella serotype should be recognized quickly so that interviews and food histories can find correlations. Once the item is identified, even if it’s not a specific brand or variety, companies can work with the agencies to test their products and narrow down the source. Having a relationship with the industry is the most effective way for government agencies to protect the American public.


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