Food Safety Experts Investigate Salmonella Cluster
U.S. food safety officials hope that a cluster of nine cases of salmonella poisoning leads them to the source of an outbreak that has made 277 sick in 28 states.
The cluster is confined to a single geographic location and that all of the sickened individuals appeared to have eaten similar types of tomatoes, David Acheson, director of food safety for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said during a press briefing. "It's essentially a very solid lead for us," he added.
Acheson and other officials, however, declined to say if the cluster they were referring to were the nine cases reported by the Chicago Department of Health, according to a Reuters report.
Those individuals reportedly ate at two restaurants from the same restaurant chain, according to published reports, which did not name the company. The FDA also declined to identify the eateries involved saying the information was confidential, the Reuters report said.
U.S. food safety officials said they continue to believe that the outbreak is not linked to a single restaurant or grocery store chain.
McDonald's Corp, the world's largest restaurant chain, said over the weekend that its U.S. restaurants would resume serving tomatoes.
FDA has identified dozens of states and countries whose tomato producers are not linked to the outbreak -- primarily because they were not supplying fruit during the time when people were becoming ill, according to the report.
The safe list includes California, which is now a major producer, northern Florida and Baja California in Mexico.
Health officials linked the outbreak to raw plum, Roma and round tomatoes and continue to warn consumers to avoid those tomatoes if they come from producers not yet cleared by FDA.
Investigators continue to focus on product from other parts of Mexico and Florida since they were the major tomato suppliers at the time of the outbreak. They have not seen any positive results for Salmonella, Acheson said.