State’s Growers Blame Cantaloupe Losses on ‘Scare’ by U.S. Agencies

The air in the town that touts itself as “the cantaloupe capital of America” is heavy with the smell of melons--worth millions of dollars--that would normally be on supermarket shelves in Chicago and New York.

Instead, tons of cantaloupes from Firebaugh and elsewhere in California’s Central Valley appear ready to rot on the vine as growers charge that federal agencies exaggerated the risk of salmonella from melons after a recent outbreak of the infection, hurting sales nationwide.

Growers complain that the agencies failed to make clear that the outbreaks resulted from improper handling of cut melons served in restaurant salad bars.

After widespread publicity following Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control bulletins about outbreaks in up to 23 states, shipments of cantaloupes from Fresno and Merced counties dropped from 400,000 cartons a day to 200,000, according to Pete Rodriguez, an inspector for the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

None of the salmonella cases were caused by California melons, because the harvest didn’t start until after the outbreak, growers say. The federal reports pointed primarily at Texas melons. And the salmonella came not from bacteria inside the melons but from unclean implements used to cut them and insufficient refrigeration in restaurants and salad bars.

California growers, whose crop is usually worth about $100 million a year, believe that consumers were scared away from whole supermarket cantaloupes even though cut cantaloupes in salad bars were the real culprit.

Steven Patricio, a grower, says he’s left 3.5 million pounds of melons on the vine because supermarkets have slowed orders. He’s laid off 500 workers and says $150,000 in lost wages “have been sucked out of the local economy in the past four days” because of lack of work at his farm alone.

With 10% of his crop lost, he hopes orders will pick up so he can continue his harvest into September. If they don’t, he says he could lose up to 30% of his usual sales. Like many growers, he’s angry at the CDC. “I’m greatly upset by the hysteria and exaggeration of facts they seem to portray,” he says.

At Perez Ranch, also in Firebaugh, Mark Perez says he has walked away from 500 acres, or 8 million pounds of cantaloupe, and says he’s lost about $500,000 because of the salmonella scare. Like many large California growers, Perez washes his melons in a chlorine solution before shipping.

He says they don’t pose a health hazard. “The impact (of the salmonella warning) has been devastating,” he says. “The FDA and the Department of Agriculture need to make the housewife and consumer feel at ease and feel it’s safe to eat cantaloupe.”

The FDA and CDC say that, properly handled, cantaloupe poses little threat. An FDA spokesman added that no cases of poisoning appear to have been from melons consumed at home. Earlier reports from the agencies noted that hundreds of people became seriously ill after eating cantaloupe from salad bars or banquet tables. Salmonella infection can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever and headache 6 to 48 hours after exposure. The infection can be fatal, but no deaths were reported in the latest outbreak.

The FDA on July 3 advised retailers and restaurants to use a chlorine-dip solution on the exterior of melons before cutting, because not all growers wash melons before packing. But after retailers complained that the precaution was unnecessary and impossible to carry out because of the large number of melons involved, the agency rescinded the instructions for using chlorine July 17.

The agency continues to recommend that cantaloupes be washed with potable water before cutting, that knives be sanitized and that cut melons be stored at 45 degrees or cooler. If melons can not be refrigerated, such as in a picnic situation, they should be discarded four hours after cutting, it said.

David Moore, president of the Western Growers Assn., says he plans to talk with Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan when they meet in September about ways to prevent unnecessary fears arising from future reports of illnesses linked with fruits and vegetables.

“It was a shame. You’d see a news broadcast saying: ‘Cantaloupes can kill.’ Housewives with young kids were frightened to death,” he said.

An FDA spokesman defended the agency’s actions. “The FDA was trying to address a public health problem in 23 states. Our primary responsibility is food safety,” said spokesman Chris Lecos.

Kay Golan, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control, said its August 16 report was “a routine epidemiological report . . . made available every week to the media. It wasn’t meant to be harmful to growers. It was meant to educate the public.”

The FDA says five outbreaks of salmonella have been linked to melons in the past 40 years. The most recent was December, 1989, to March, 1990, when 25,000 people in 30 states were affected by cantaloupes served in salad bars. Two deaths were reported.