The State - News from April 25, 1986

The outbreak of watermelon-related food poisoning last summer raised questions about the ability of current laboratory techniques to pinpoint the tiny amounts of pesticide that caused the illnesses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. California’s outbreak was finally controlled only after officials ordered all watermelons in the state’s food distribution system destroyed, and disease control scientists have issued a report in which they offered the possibility that “the laboratory analyses are too insensitive to detect (the poison aldicarb, which was blamed for the outbreak) at levels that can cause human illness.”