Word: tomatoes
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...Each set of questions just multiplies into a fan of information that has to be sorted through to understand where the links cross over," says Acheson. Although the FDA has managed to rule out some regions - northern Florida is safe because its tomatoes weren't ready for harvest at the time of the outbreak - it will be some time until the true source is found. "We're not quite there yet," says Acheson, "but we're getting very close." But Dr. Ian Williams, chief of the CDC's OutbreakNet team, warns that the source may never be found...
...Still, the lag time between the initial outbreak and the government's reaction is startling: the first Salmonella Saintpaul victim fell ill on April 16, but the FDA didn't announce the tomato link until June 3. Williams says part of the problem identifying salmonella outbreaks is that a lot of victims don't see the symptoms - diarrhea, fever, vomiting - as sufficiently severe to warrant a visit to the doctor, and so they go undiagnosed. "There may be a delay in reporting outbreaks because people do not have a stool specimen tested," he says. Officials have not yet identified...
...unveiled a tomato-safety initiative in 2007 that sought to identify causes of salmonella infection, but Acheson admits that studying preventive techniques doesn't help the FDA deal with outbreaks. The FDA has no plans to change the initiative in the face of the recent outbreak...
...Even if the FDA can pinpoint the source of the outbreak, it's hard for consumers to know where their tomatoes are grown. Certain imported foods are required to carry country-of-origin labels, but that doesn't apply to domestic produce. "I'm not aware of any tomato outbreak that was not domestic," says Acheson. There is no such thing as a mandatory state-of-origin label for food, and federal authorities have yet to create such a law. "Saying 'product of the U.S.' isn't necessarily going to confer safety," he says. So much for reassurance...
...that it has seen a 300% increase in claims of copper theft in the past 18 months. Home foreclosures have worsened the trend, as empty buildings are easy targets for the time-consuming task of ripping out pipes and wiring. In California, theft of copper irrigation systems has damaged tomato and alfalfa crops. And churches and schools all over the U.S. are sweating it out after their industrial-size air conditioners have been gutted for their copper coils...