Pew Produce Safety Project Criticizes Government Salmonella Response
The Produce Safety Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts has issued a report following its review of the government response to this summer’s
Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that affected thousands of consumers in many states and was never definitively linked to a source, although tomatoes and jalapeno peppers were alternately blamed. Citing specific examples of confusing, uncoordinated and poorly planned communiqués from multiple government agencies, the report calls for more post-mortem study of the government’s response to clarify its shortcomings and inform future efforts.
Noting that federal agencies pointed to tomatoes as the cause of the outbreak, but that no contaminated tomato was ever found, the Pew report suggests that the error not only failed to adequately protect consumers but also cost the agricultural industry millions in losses and could have long-term impacts as consumers lose confidence in the safety of “fresh produce in general and fresh tomatoes in particular.” The report concludes, “A lack of FDA-mandated preventive safety standards for domestic and imported fresh produce has long been recognized as a major issue. Instead of using this most recent outbreak to move forward, FDA officials continue to say that they must wait for Congress to give them explicit authority to act. The outbreak response was marked by a lack of organization, capacity and coordination that calls into question the public-health effectiveness of the response. Finally, messages to the public were often mixed, if not contradictory.”
Among the specific mixed messages cited in the report is an outbreak map that was posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site and changed three times over a three-day period, offering “three different visual ways of understanding and interpreting the outbreak.” The report notes, “While it was commendable that CDC sought during the course of the outbreak to find better and more complete ways to communicate graphically, it is troubling that this determination was not made beforehand; it might have minimized the confusion and frustration experienced by state officials, the produce industry and consumers. The report also includes a timeline of events, and a copy of the questionnaire used with those affected by the outbreak to help public-health officials identify potential sources.
