FDA Finds Salmonella Saintpaul in a Jalapeno
A day after the Foods & Drug Administration removed tomatoes from the cautionary list of foods that could be causing the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, investigators found at least one culprit of the bacteria that has sickened more than 1,250 people –– a jalapeno pepper grown in Mexico.
After nearly three months of investigating and searching, the FDA yesterday identified a jalapeno pepper in a packing company in McAllen, Texas contaminated with the rare Salmonella Saintpaul strain.
This is the first piece of produce investigators have found with the strain of the foodborne bacteria that is sickening so many people.
Dr. David Acheson, the associate commissioner for foods at the FDA characterized the find as an "a significant break in the salmonella investigation," adding that the FDA now is warning consumers not to eat fresh jalapeno peppers.
Although the pepper came from a Mexican farm, Acheson said there is no evidence that the piece of produce was contaminated there. Investigators from the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will now trace the pepper's path before it arrived at Agricola Zaragoza, the packer in McAllen, to find a source of contamination.
"While this one sample doesn't yet give us the whole story," Acheson said, "this genetic match is a very important break in the case because it enables us to focus our investigation on the production chain, which will ultimately allow us to hopefully pinpoint the source of the contamination."
Investigators must also search forward to find all the places where Agricola Zaragoza distributed its peppers, and whether any of them might have caused the clusters of salmonella outbreaks.
Acheson said the pepper was found after investigators examined a cluster of salmonella illnesses and then worked down the distribution chain, which led it to the McAllen company.
Agricola Zaragoza has reportedly recalled the jalapeno peppers it distributed after June 30 because of the salmonella find.
The small size of the company, which employs three people, has one food safety expert skeptical that it could be a sole source of the salmonella problem.
"It would be something different if this were a big distribution place," Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union told the Chicago Tribune. "But they only have three people there and $600,000 in estimated annual sales. So this can't be it."
Although tomatoes were initially suspected and then later cleared for consumption, they have not been totally absolved, according to the FDA.