Eating tomatoes now safe, FDA says

It’s OK to eat all kinds of tomatoes again, the U.S. government declared Thursday, lifting its warning on the summer favorite amid signs that the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, while not over, may finally be slowing.

Hot peppers still get a caution: The people most at risk of contracting salmonella -- including the elderly and people with weak immune systems -- should avoid fresh jalapenos and serranos, and any dishes that may contain them such as salsa, federal health officials advised.

Investigators still don’t know what caused the salmonella outbreak, which has sickened 1,220 people in 42 states -- the earliest falling ill on April 10 and the latest so far on July 4.

But Thursday’s move, which comes as the tomato industry estimates its losses at more than $100 million, doesn’t mean that tomatoes harvested in the spring are cleared.

It just means that the tomatoes in fields and stores today are safe to eat, said David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety chief.

“This is not saying that anybody was absolved,” Acheson said. But “as of today, FDA officials believe that consumers may now enjoy all types of fresh tomatoes available without concern of becoming infected with Salmonella Saintpaul,” the outbreak strain.

Early on, there was good evidence linking certain raw tomatoes to the sick, Acheson stressed. Yet inspectors haven’t found the salmonella outbreak strain on any farms or in the suspect areas of South Florida and parts of Mexico, where they have managed to trace tomatoes believed to have been eaten by people who then became sick.

As the salmonella outbreak stretched into last month, more evidence emerged against fresh jalapenos -- which for now is the FDA’s hottest lead.

The agency sent inspectors to a Mexican packing house that supplied peppers linked to a cluster of those illnesses.

Also still on the suspect list is fresh cilantro.