Inquiry expands beyond tomatoes

Health officials are expanding their investigation beyond tomatoes and into other produce as they search for the source of a salmonella outbreak that now has sickened 869 people over nearly three months.

As reports of victims continue to grow across 36 states and Washington, D.C., long after many tomato producers finished harvesting, officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters in a conference call Tuesday that they were recruiting more laboratories to help with the investigation.

They also said they would start looking at produce commonly served with the fruit, though they refused to specify what other items were suspected.

Since June 1, at least 179 people have become ill, with the most recently reported infection occurring June 20, said Robert Tauxe of the CDC.

Tomatoes are still the lead suspect, as 80% of victims reported eating the fruit, Tauxe said. “Tomatoes aren’t off the hook,” said David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods for the FDA. But the culprit’s trail is convoluted and the pace of tracking “has been frustratingly slow,” he said.

Investigators are combing through the entire tomato distribution chain and are weighing multiple scenarios, including a shared water source at one or more farms or a common packing site, to try to determine how the fruit would have become contaminated. Health officials are also not ruling out a possible cross-contamination scenario, where infected tomatoes came in contact with other produce.

Acheson chided the produce industry for its paper-based records, saying that there is a “critical need for the industry to modernize its practices” to help improve traceability.

In recent weeks, tomato growers have blasted the FDA for the slow investigation, blaming the agency for what they say are millions of dollars lost to plunging sales and destroyed tomatoes.

On Saturday, the Western Growers Assn. urged the House Committee on Agriculture to probe the FDA’s response to the outbreak.

“It’s so ridiculous that the agencies are speculating as to what the ‘other produce’ is,” Amy Philpott, a spokeswoman with United Fresh Produce Assn., said Tuesday. “It’s causing so much confusion, and tells the consumer nothing. If they have the epidemiological data, they should just say what it is.”

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tiffany.hsu@latimes.com