The FDA botched the last big outbreak of salmonella when it issued a huge warning to avoid tomatoes based on the fact that people who'd eaten salsa were getting sick. Turns out salsa was indeed making people sick -- but that's because the jalapenos in it were alive with the salmonella bacteria, not tomatoes. The tomato industry was nearly crippled and people continued to get sick off of jalapenos.
The FDA is well on its way to messing up another food supply with this latest salmonella outbreak in Minnesota. The agency has done a good job locating a strain of salmonella in some tainted peanut butter. The peanut butter that's being recalled is for institutions only, but consumer manufacturers like Kellogg's are playing safe and issuing a stop-hold. (One level below an actual recall.) Charles Ferruzza called Kellogg's in an earlier Fat City post to get some more detail and the company said it was taking "precautionary measures."
While there is salmonella in the peanut butter, the peanut butter cannot be the cause of all the outbreaks.
It wasn't sold in many of the 43 states where outbreaks have occured. Experts have already ruled out peanut butter as the cause of outbreaks in Rhode Island. "None of the three
[cases] had eaten peanut butter before they were stricken. Nor was there any
other factor linking the three Rhode Island cases to each other."
The Minnesota results show one of the carriers of the bacteria is
peanut butter, but it's not the host food. By the time the FDA or CDC
finds the real cause, it's most likely the strain will have passed.
While all of this is going on, the Grocery Manufactuers Association has launched a large lobbying effort aimed at
Barack Obama and congress to heavily increase spending on food safety
measures. Two epidemic salmonella outbreaks in 2008 show the FDA
is having trouble, and while I hate lobbyists as much as the next
person, I hope Obama decides that food
safety should be a priority. In the meantime, I'll continue to avoid
peanut butter for what could be futile reasons.
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