| | |  Health & Beauty | July 2008 
Ingredients From Mexico Being Inspected For Salmonella
 Neharika Sabharwal - themedguru.com
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 |  | Estimates show a cut of approximately $450 million in the income of tomato growers |  | | | |
The unknown cause and far reaching implications of Salmonella Saintpaul has got health inspectors halting shipments of ingredients of Mexican cuisine coming to United States starting Monday.
According to the new plan of action the imports will be intercepted at the border itself. Food samples will be collected and sent to the laboratory for examination for Salmonella bacteria.
Salmonella is a group of bacteria that can cause diarrhea illness in humans. Most persons infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days. Most people recover without treatment. However, in some persons, the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized.
Tommy Thompson, former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services stated that the inquiry was initially focused only on tomatoes, but it has now expanded to vegetables like cilantro, jalapeño peppers, Serrano peppers, scallions and bulb onions.
The import operation has raised a lot of queries like, where could the contaminated products be? How could one know? Where along the supply chain could the contamination happen? Could it be at the retail level, wholesale, grower, processor or transport? Is somebody doing something to expose the products at the retailer?
Unfortunately the authorities have no answers to these burning questions. Salmonellosis has already infected 943 people in 40 states of Columbia and Canada according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Carl Nielson, former director of the Food and Drug Administration complaining of the disease and lack of measures to halt it, states, ”You don't even take into consideration the thousands of people that have been sick, and how much it's cost in drugs, loss of time and mental anguish for people who are sick."
Last year the same strain had affected just 3 people, according to the records of U.S. health authorities. This number has now jumped to 943.
Of course the effect that this rare disease has had on the farmer’s income cannot be ignored. Estimates show a cut of approximately $450 million in the income of tomato growers. |
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