Restaurant and Food Service Blog

Federal health officials are checking into the possibility that an outbreak of salmonella-caused illness originally linked to tomatoes may instead be linked to something else, they said Friday.

“Produce investigations are very difficult, because a lot of times, vegetables are eaten all together,” said Dr. Patricia Griffin, chief of the Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. That makes it hard to trace back any one item to a source of contamination, she added. “We continue to keep an open mind about the possible source of this outbreak, as does FDA.”

Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration, agreed. “There is a strong epidemiological association with tomatoes,” but the agency is also “looking into other ingredients,” he said.

The scare has prompted grocery chains nationwide to pull tomatoes from their shelves and some restaurants to stop offering them as ingredients.

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