Salmonella CONFIRMED on mexican jalapeno peppers

[Professional]

Question is, who do ya short on that news.
Posted July 21, 2008 3:15 PM
The Swamp

by Stephen J. Hedges

Call it the smoking jalapeno. After nearly two months of mystery, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has identified a jalepeno pepper that is contaminated with the same strain of Salmonella saintpaul that has sickened more than 1,237 people in 43 states.

It's the first time during this outbreak that a test has found the salmonella strain in a piece of produce.

The discovery, which will be announced shortly by FDA, was made at a packing plant in McAllen, Texas, according to a source familiar with the issue. The pepper was grown in Mexico, the source said, but was sent to the U.S. for sale. Authorities are not sure where it was contaminated with salmonella.

It is also not clear whether the same packing plant, which has not been named by the FDA, also packs tomatoes. The FDA first suspected tomatoes as the cause of the salmonella outbreak and warned consumers on June 7 to avoid certain types of tomatoes. It lifted that warning last week.

Because people continued to get sick after the tomato warning, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shifted their investigation to jalapeno and Serrano peppers, which sick people had reported eating.

For the FDA, which was under public and political pressure to find the cause of the salmonella outbreak, the discovery of a smoking pepper is a big breakthrough.
Salmonella mystery: the smoking pepper: The Swamp