United Fresh’s Stenzel Questions Tomato Link to <em> Salmonella</em> Outbreak

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — If the evidence doesn’t fit, food safety officials should acquit tomatoes as a source of the Salmonella Saintpaul pathogen in the now-concluded massive foodborne illness outbreak, one industry leader asked Food and Drug Administration officials here Sept. 11.

At the end of an 1 ½-hour meeting, Washington, D.C.-based United Fresh Produce Association President Tom Stenzel thanked FDA officials here for their willingness to meet with attendees of the Washington Public Policy Conference and answer questions about the salmonella outbreak traceback investigation and the agency’s oversight of produce safety issues.

Stenzel also asked agency officials to reevaluate the evidence that in June linked tomatoes to the outbreak that sickened more than a 1,400 people. Federal officials eventually found jalapeno and serrano peppers with the pathogen but never established hard evidence that proved the link with tomatoes.

“I really, really, really ask the agency to join in a reassessment that tomatoes were ever involved in this outbreak,” Stenzel said at end of the session in an auditorium at the agency’s College Park facility.

“It’s a rigorous debate, it’s a scientific debate, it’s not wishful thinking on our part,” Stenzel said. “I think there will be a rigorous scientific debate whether the initial epidemiological evidence was good science, now that we do have hard evidence, microbiological evidence, of peppers on a particular farm.”

Stenzel argued, from United Fresh’s perspective, that there seems to be “no logical way” that tomatoes were involved in the outbreak. “I urge the FDA in particular, don’t feel compelled by the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or New Mexico’s initial assessment. I think the agency has a lot riding on this.”

Source: The Packer