Salmonella Outbreak Sparks Senator Harkin to Push for Food Tracing System

As the source of the nationwide salmonella outbreak still has FDA and CDC authorities scratching their heads, Senator Tom Harkin, the Chairman of Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, is publicly pushing for an effective system to allow tracing of the origins of fresh produce in food safety outbreaks. His plea comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week that since April, 1148 persons have been infected with Salmonella Saintpaul, with cases that have been identified in 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada.

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt, Harkin said that the Salmonella outbreak demonstrates the need for better coordination and communication among federal agencies, industry, and the states, as well as a strong trace-back system to determine the source of food-borne illness outbreaks.

“Each food-borne outbreak seems to be larger than the next, and in this case, over a month has lapsed and the origins of this case are still unknown,” said Harkin. “The victims of this outbreak are growing by the day and don’t know what food made them sick because the source of contamination remains a mystery to the Food and Drug Administration. How do you tell over 1000 people we don’t know what made them sick?

“In the face of stark warnings about the vulnerability of our food supply, it is time for the government to take action and implement effective trace-back processes so that we can quickly track the origins of contaminated food products in order to prevent increasing cases of illness. It is long past time for the government to take comprehensive steps to increase our response to food-borne illness outbreaks.”

Since Harkin’s request for a better system was issued two days ago, the number of folks sickened in the salmonella outbreak have reached 1196, according to the CDC website. Meanwhile, consumers aren’t getting any definitive answers about what is safe and what isn’t. Aside from avoiding tomatoes, salsa, hot peppers and a variety of other ingredients used in Mexican cuisine, there seems to be no sure-fire cure for dodging being another statistic in this salmonella outbreak. The reason is because authorities are chasing leads that turn out to be fruitless; should the government require the produce industry to track their goods, this whole mess could be much less complicated.