Farmers Had Been Warned
U.S. health officials told California farmers to improve produce safety in a pointed warning letter last November, nearly a year before the multistate E. coli outbreak linked to spinach.
In fact, the current food-poisoning episode is the 20th since 1995 linked to spinach or lettuce, the Food and Drug Administration says.
Though state and federal officials have traced the current outbreak to a California company’s fresh spinach, they have not pinpointed the source of the bacteria that have killed one person and sickened more than 100 others.
The FDA is still warning consumers not to eat fresh spinach.
There is no evidence of tampering in the outbreak, FDA spokeswoman Susan Bro said Monday. That leaves a broad range of other possible sources, including contaminated irrigation water that has been a problem in California’s Salinas Valley. The area on California’s central coast produces much of the U.S. spinach crop.
There have been 19 other food-poisoning outbreaks since 1995 linked to lettuce and spinach, according to the FDA. At least eight were traced to produce grown in the Salinas Valley. The outbreaks involved more than 400 cases of sickness and two deaths.
In 2004 and again in 2005, the FDA’s top food safety official warned California farmers they needed to do more to increase the safety of the fresh leafy greens they grow. more…
