An Expensive Belly Ache
Following up on my earlier post related to the Salmonella Stpaul outbreak linked to tomatoes and the FDA’s handling of the matter, the cost of this problem, which has unfortunately caused illness in some .000056% of the US population, has taken a greater financial toll on Florida’s tomato growers than earlier feared. According to this story, and despite the fact that portions of Florida have been cleared by the FDA, what was initially estimated to be a loss of $40 million to the Florida tomato industry has increased over ten fold.
The exact source of the tainted produce has yet to be identified, but the FDA on Tuesday cleared growers in parts of Florida.
But as they got back to work, growers in the southeastern state said the scare had cost them some 500 million dollars.
I’m just wondering, based on your previous comparison to lightning strikes and whatnot, how long does it take for 145 people to be struck by lightning vs how rapidly did these 145 people get sick.
Also, what would you say would be an appropriate threshold for a percentage of the US population to be stricken ill before they should be informed of a known danger with a single food product?
I’m not saying that they should have freaked out and pulled the product off the shelf (though I’m not as up to date on this as you; did the FDA order the product be taken from the shelves or was that the independent choice of the stores/restaurants) — I’m really just wondering if your comparisons are really apples-apples, or apples-oranges.
-Mike
Comment by Mike — 6/12/2008 @ 12:56 pm
First of all, my comment was meant to be facetious, but for the record NOAA suggests that:
I think it is totally appropriate for the FDA and/or the CDC to advise people of known risks. It’s their job. The problem is in how they go about doing it in a rational way. In this case, consumers and produce people I have talked to have only been confused by the FDA’s current advisory. Beyond their garbled and downright wrong terminology and lack of clarity, they have taken a bad situation and made it worse I think.
If you are going inform people of a danger, you need to a) identify the danger, b) explain the risk level to individuals based on the numbers, odds, etc., c) explain realistically what the real risk is. For example, if “it” gets you or you get “it” what is the most likely scenario (e.g. diarrhea or death)?
I don’t think the FDC did as good of a job at this as they could have in this case, which has left consumers wondering and industry people confused as they try to fill in the blanks.
One must be careful where, when, and how they yell, “Fire!”
Comment by James — 6/12/2008 @ 2:32 pm
I’m ignoring the “round tomato” part because that’s just inexcusable. What was the actual FDA advisory? I don’t get my news from government press conferences, sadly, I get it from the major media outlets and blogs like this.
Was this the FDA being irresponsible, or was it the media being irresponsible with the little information that was available? Should the FDA have waited until they had all the specifics to let people know about the issue? How long would have been appropriate to wait?
While not the same agency, this is the same government which had recently been accused at being too slow to respond, to the point that they were accused of racism.
Comment by Mike — 6/12/2008 @ 3:14 pm
Looking at http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01848.html, I can’t really find any problem with it besides “red round tomatoes”
They specifically say what you can eat, and while I’m not as much of an expert as you, I know that there are signs around some tomatoes at the supermarket marking them ‘tomatoes on the vine’ — I actually try to get those when it’s not Jersey tomato season.
From wikipedia: “Recently, stores have begun selling “tomatoes on the vine”, which are determinate varieties that are ripened or harvested with the fruits still connected to a piece of vine. These tend to have more flavor than artificially ripened tomatoes (at a price premium), but still may not be the equal of local garden produce.”
That implies to me that the problem may have had to do with the packaging process or the aforementioned artificial ripening process.
The FDA specifically says how many people have been effected and even go further saying how many had to be hospitalized, which is a small percentage of those infected at all (23/145). They don’t say anyone died. They explain the typical reaction to the infection. I’m sorry if they left it to the reader to lookup how many people there are in the country/world, … they shouldn’t have to.
They even link to where you can get a list of safe tomato producing states: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/tomatoes.html#retailers
Looking back further to http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01843.html you can see they even initially limited their notification to Texas/New Mexico.
“From April 23 though June 1, 2008, there have been 57 reported cases of salmonellosis caused by Salmonella Saintpaul in New Mexico and Texas, including 17 hospitalizations. Approximately 30 reports of illness in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Utah are currently being investigated to determine whether they are also linked to tomatoes. There are no reported deaths.”
If there’s been any seriously irresponsible actions about this, I’d say you may be better served looking to the media who may have taken the carefully worded warnings a bit too liberally and created their own panic.
I mean take this for example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=avFnlWEORQVg&refer=home
It quotes people from the CDC, and provides a link, which points to the cdc’s home page, and nothing to do with the quote, … but if you dig a bit deeper, they’ve got some good information at http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/saintpaul/
“nce mid-April, 167 persons infected with Salmonella Saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 17 states: Arizona (12 persons), California (2), Colorado (1), Connecticut (1), Idaho (2), Illinois (27), Indiana (7), Kansas (5), Michigan (2), New Mexico (39), Oklahoma (3), Oregon (3), Texas (56), Utah (1), Virginia (2), Washington (1), and Wisconsin (3). These were identified because clinical laboratories in all states send Salmonella strains from ill persons to their State public health laboratory for characterization. Among the 73 persons who have been interviewed, illnesses began between April 16 and May 27, 2008. Patients range in age from 1 to 82 years; 49% are female. At least 23 persons were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.”
The CDC quotes the 1 connecticut infection, so I’ve got a feeling it’s true. Maybe it’s not the same person you heard about, but they explicitly say that they tested samples of the connecticut strain and it was saintpaul.
The CDC even takes it a step further recommending you wash your fruit before you eat it.
Comment by Mike — 6/12/2008 @ 3:34 pm
I linked to the official FDA advisory in may last post, Mike. But here it is again. Actually the media was uncharacteristically responsible in all this. They simply were accurately reporting what the FDA was saying. It seems that either the FDA never communicated with people in the industry or they didn’t listen.
When most of the cases are in the southwest (esp. TX & NM) the three most likely sources are FL (who supplies 80% of the tomato market in the US), CA & Mexico (who sell most of their product west of the Mississippi), and maybe British Columbia (less likely because the majority of their product is shipped within Canada or to the northeast US). While other growing regions or growers could be the source, the odds are significantly lower just because of the geography of this outbreak.
Now, Canada and CA were ruled out by the FDA relatively quickly, and FL has been at least partially within the last few days. Between that and the other “safe regions” listed in the advisory, a huge portion of the market has been ruled out from what I can see. The only remaining region that ships the volume and has the distribution areas that would fit the pattern is Mexico. It is always possible that it is somewhere else, but, at least within the industry, that is who is most suspect because they are all aware of the information that I have shared herein. I would hope that the FDA is aware of these dynamics, but who knows? Based on their advisory, it is very difficult to ascertain what methods they are using in approaching this thing.
Comment by James — 6/12/2008 @ 4:06 pm
I do not exonerate the media, Mike. Embellishing stories is what they do to sell papers or whatever. I will also say that using proper terminology is very important.
The fact that roma/plum tomatoes are sold without a stem attached and “round red tomatoes” likely refers to conventional beefsteak tomatoes that are largely sold without a stem, indicates that the stem removal is what makes these types of tomatoes more susceptible to contamination. This jibes with recommendations within the North American Tomato Trade Group’s document Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidelines for the Fresh Tomato Supply Chain. On page 12 of that document it states the following:
This is information available to the FDA. If they had simply recommended that people avoid tomatoes that have no stem attached, it would have been far less confusing to people. They could then go on (as they have) and list regions that have been cleared of suspicion.
At the end of the day, I am not just speaking for myself on this one. I have spent the week discussing this with a great many people in and out of the tomato industry and every one of them feel that the FDA could have done a much better job of communicating with the public.
Comment by James — 6/12/2008 @ 5:22 pm
What exactly wasn’t communicated? The complaint seems to boil down to the whole ’round tomato’ thing.
Comment by Mike — 6/12/2008 @ 7:20 pm
I don’t want to beat this into the ground, but that whole “round red tomato” thing was and is a pretty big deal. What would happen if the NTSB came out and alerted automobile drivers that wheels have been coming off of cars and 150+ people had been injured, then they advised consumers to avoid buying or driving all Chevrolet and Saturn models, as well as automobiles that have tires?
Beyond that, the pace of their investigation has drawn criticism from many corners. If you want to shrug off their incompetence, that’s up to you. I and many others will not.
Comment by James — 6/12/2008 @ 7:48 pm
I guess I was responding mostly to the hyperbole of your original post. All that crap emphasizing the likelihood of infection and claiming ignorance to the whole tomatoes on the vine thing.
Comment by Mike — 6/13/2008 @ 12:57 pm
Is this a “tomato on the vine”?
Comment by James — 6/13/2008 @ 2:10 pm
Looks covered in salmonella, to me.
Comment by Adam — 6/13/2008 @ 3:07 pm
Heh.
Comment by James — 6/13/2008 @ 5:48 pm
I don’t know, did you get it from a supermarket next to a sign that reads “Tomatoes on the Vine” ?
Comment by Mike — 6/13/2008 @ 6:59 pm
I eat only tomahtoes, so I’m safe.
Comment by Rojas — 6/13/2008 @ 8:44 pm