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One Very Scary Jalapeño
Thursday July 24, 2008
By The Editorial Board
Federal health officials have finally found a jalapeño tainted with the rare form of salmonella that has poisoned more than 1,200 people in this country since April. The contaminated pepper was grown in Mexico and repacked by a small Texas distributor. The company has pulled its supplies from the marketplace, and the Food and Drug Administration is advising people to eat only jalapeños and serranos that have been safely cooked.
This does not mean it’s over. Finding one bad pepper cannot close the lid on the largest outbreak of food-borne illness in America in a decade.
In the short term, the F.D.A. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still need to find out exactly where and how these peppers were contaminated. And they need to tell consumers whether the tomatoes that have been suspect since early June were also causing intestinal problems. The only real cure can come from Congress, which needs to move quickly to strengthen the nation’s food-safety system. The public is demanding action, and the food industry should support, not delay, reforms.
Four years ago, the Bush administration and food-industry leaders watered down regulations on tracing food supplies from farms to consumers that were supposed to be part of the nation’s new bioterrorism preparedness law. The effort they said would be too cumbersome and too costly.
These days, anyone in the tomato industry could attest to the commercial value of knowing which produce is bad so that the rest of the untainted products could go to market. After the F.D.A. alerts on possible contamination of some tomatoes, many tomato farmers plowed under their crops. The industry estimates losses at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Congress could relieve consumers and food producers alike with a comprehensive food-safety bill that would require a system for tracing food, better oversight of food-safety plans by producers and more authority for the F.D.A. to investigate and recall tainted products.
A bill proposed by Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, is a good start. It would require the F.D.A. and the Department of Agriculture, which monitors food safety, to establish a working system to trace food products accurately and quickly. At least 1,200 people in America and the country’s tomato growers can testify that the present system needs work.
This does not mean it’s over. Finding one bad pepper cannot close the lid on the largest outbreak of food-borne illness in America in a decade.
In the short term, the F.D.A. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still need to find out exactly where and how these peppers were contaminated. And they need to tell consumers whether the tomatoes that have been suspect since early June were also causing intestinal problems. The only real cure can come from Congress, which needs to move quickly to strengthen the nation’s food-safety system. The public is demanding action, and the food industry should support, not delay, reforms.
Four years ago, the Bush administration and food-industry leaders watered down regulations on tracing food supplies from farms to consumers that were supposed to be part of the nation’s new bioterrorism preparedness law. The effort they said would be too cumbersome and too costly.
These days, anyone in the tomato industry could attest to the commercial value of knowing which produce is bad so that the rest of the untainted products could go to market. After the F.D.A. alerts on possible contamination of some tomatoes, many tomato farmers plowed under their crops. The industry estimates losses at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Congress could relieve consumers and food producers alike with a comprehensive food-safety bill that would require a system for tracing food, better oversight of food-safety plans by producers and more authority for the F.D.A. to investigate and recall tainted products.
A bill proposed by Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, is a good start. It would require the F.D.A. and the Department of Agriculture, which monitors food safety, to establish a working system to trace food products accurately and quickly. At least 1,200 people in America and the country’s tomato growers can testify that the present system needs work.