Nations differ on tests for peppers
In salmonella search, Mexico and U.S. disagree about the cause
By SEAN MATTSON San Antonio Express-News
Aug. 10, 2008, 11:07PM
32Comments 1Recommend DALGO, MEXICO — The lab results on Sergio Maltos' desk show that investigators from Mexico and the United States came to drastically different conclusions about the cause of the salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1,300 Americans this summer.

Investigators from both nations visited the farm in question, about 200 miles south of Laredo in Tamaulipas state, in July to test nearly identical materials.

The Food and Drug Administration found irrigation water and a serrano pepper that tested positive for the salmonella Saintpaul strain. Maltos, a top official at the Nuevo León state laboratory that processed Mexico's samples, had two positive tests as well — one from animal excrement and one from mud near an irrigation ditch.

The water and peppers Mexico tested, however, were clean, he said.

How the FDA and its Mexican counterparts managed to reach such different conclusions in a binational health scare that has cost farmers millions of dollars is a mystery neither government seems in a hurry to clear up.

"It's possible that there are differences. But it's extremely improbable," Maltos said.

Each team took its own whole pepper samples, said Maltos and Julio Alemán, who manages the 50-acre field.

The peppers were 500 yards from the ditch and were dehydrated because the field had been fully harvested a month before the inspection, Alemán said. That in itself eliminates a scientifically valid link between the farm and the outbreak, he and Mexican officials argued.

The FDA sparked Mexico's ire when David Acheson, the FDA's food safety chief, announced the agency's results at a congressional hearing July 30. Lawmakers were scrutinizing the agency's investigation of the outbreak, which was originally blamed on tomatoes but lacked conclusive evidence.

The FDA currently warns U.S. consumers to avoid raw jalapeño or serrano peppers grown in Mexico.

Mexico, which repeatedly denied having the salmonella Saintpaul serotype in the country even before testing was complete, said Acheson's statement broke an agreement that the two nations were to release findings simultaneously.

Last week, Mexico had not finished the tests required to determine whether its positive salmonella tests matched the strain responsible for the outbreak, Maltos said.

As Mexican farmers fulminated over the second FDA warning in a year to hurt their bottom line, Mexican federal health officials and the FDA declined to explain their conflicting findings.

"This is still an open investigation, so I can't go into details or provide you a description of samples," said Michael Herndon, an FDA press officer. "However, we stand by our test results, which demonstrated a genetic match to the serotype salmonella Saintpaul in both samples of water used for irrigation and composite samples of serrano peppers."

Jesse Thomas, who co-owns 225 acres of peppers in the Hidalgo area a few miles from where the positive tests were taken, had choice words for anyone accusing farmers there of being the source of the U.S. salmonella outbreak.

"We're no longer working in antiquity," he said, pointing to his high-tech operation, which includes water-saving irrigation techniques overseen by an agricultural engineer. "It's not the Mexico you think of, with the donkey pulling the plow."

Most area farms draw water, which is filtered, though not purified, from wells, Thomas said.

"We treat the plants like they were babies," said Alemán, who said water and produce are tested regularly to assure exportation standards are met.

Pepper prices in Mexico have fallen by at least a third because of the FDA warning as the harvest in other parts of Mexico hits the market, said César Fregoso, who represents a farmers union in Mexico City.

The Centers for Disease Control last week said the salmonella outbreak likely had more than one source. Tomatoes have not been ruled out, but the FDA lifted its warning on consuming them because any contaminated ones would probably no longer be on the market.

About 40,000 people a year in the United States are sickened with salmonella, a bacterium that lives in the intestines of some animals and causes illness that can include fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

Reported clusters of people sickened by the outbreak, one of the largest ever, were in Texas and Minnesota, said Lola Scott Russell, a CDC press officer.

"What makes this (outbreak) notable is the number of persons that has become sickened with this same strain," she said. "And this particular strain ... is a rare strain."

Federal health officials in Mexico City and their state counterparts in Nuevo León and Tamaulipas said there has not been an outbreak of salmonella Saintpaul in the entire country. There were more than 66,000 salmonella cases in Mexico in 2007, a rate considerably higher than the United States.

The suggestion that Mexican-grown peppers are unfit for consumption was one of the strangest things Elizabeth Orozco, a shop owner, said she had ever heard.

"We've eaten peppers since I was a little girl and have never had a problem," said Orozco, 29, as she carted off a few pounds of peppers with her fresh produce from the market.

"It's as if they were to tell us not to eat tortillas," she said.

Sean Mattson is the Express-News Mexico Correspondent. He is based in Monterrey, Mexico.

mattson.sean@gmail.com


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