CDC links peppers, salmonella
WASHINGTON – Federal health officials now blame raw jalapenos for some of the illnesses in the three-month-old salmonella outbreak and Wednesday advised the elderly, infants and people with compromised immune systems to avoid them.
Investigators still think tomatoes – the original suspect in the outbreak – have made people sick and are considering the possibility that the same rare strain of salmonella has contaminated both tomatoes and peppers.
The number of people who have gotten sick has reached 1,017, making it the largest outbreak of food-borne illness in 10 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One death, of a Texas man in his 80s, has been linked to the outbreak. Another Texas man, in his 60s, who died of cancer, was infected with the outbreak strain.
The new warning also applies to raw serrano peppers, which are often confused with jalapenos.
Last week, officials started testing peppers for salmonella saintpaul, but they did not issue a warning until Wednesday. Health officials targeted the jalapeno warning at a smaller segment of the population than the one previously issued for tomatoes because they have not linked specific jalapeno varieties to the outbreak.
“We thought of this as our way of protecting those at greatest risk as more information develops about jalapenos,” said Robert Tauxe, a top official with the CDC. The CDC is leading the probe along with the Food and Drug Administration.
The impact of the jalapeno warning rippled through the food industry Wednesday. “We are going to put a hold on our raw jalapeno inventory,” said Mark Palmer, spokesman for Sysco, the largest food distributor in North America.
The company will stop distributing as well as receiving the peppers.
The new recommendation is not likely to have as broad an economic impact as the tomato warning because jalapenos are not consumed as widely, but it is likely to add to the woes of growers and importers who have had shipments held in recent days for testing by the FDA.