After weeks of getting blamed for causing as many as 1,200 people in 42 states and the District of Columbia to become ill with infection from Salmonella, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has canceled its warning against eating raw tomatoes. The Salmonella outbreak has been the largest outbreak of a food-borne illness in the US in at least a decade.
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Tomatoes are off the hook but there are still concerns about eating raw serrano and jalapeno peppers. Many people who got sick had both the tomatoes and the peppers in dishes that included guacamole and salsa although these foods do not explain every case of bacterial infection that has been reported.
The exact origin of the bacterial infection is still a mystery and the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are continuing the hunt for the source of contamination. A packing plant in Mexico is thought to be the most likely culprit at this time and investigators from the US will soon conduct a thorough investigation of the Mexican facility, where it is believed the irrigation system or a packing shed handling many types of produce may prove to be responsible for the contamination.
The exact strain of bacteria, Salmonella saintpaul, is somewhat rare, a situation that had investigators believing the source of contamination would be easily found. The point of origin has remained elusive, however, but public health officials think the outbreak has reached a peak and infection is on the decline. During the middle of June, as many as 33 people a day were getting sick from the bacterial infection. At any rate, all tomatoes thought to be contaminated are said to be off the US market.
