Tomatoes are the new spinach. They’re this year’s peanut butter and imported seafood, the latest in a painfully long line of potentially tainted foods to turn up on market shelves.
By now, it should be painfully obvious to consumers, grocers and farmers that the nation’s food safety system is in urgent need of retooling. It is fragmented, underfunded and lacks such common sense tools as the ability to track products and order recalls. On Thursday, congressional investigators were expected to tell a House oversight panel that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for inspecting produce, has done little to put its long-promised food protection plan into operation.
The FDA plan was rolled out with much fanfare last November after a series of high-profile problems dating back to a 2006 scare over contaminated spinach. But the final version of the FDA plan has yet to be released publicly, let alone put into effect. Meanwhile, the number of federal inspectors continues to decline, while the number of food producers grows. And the Bush administration has stalled an FDA request for $275 million in emergency supplemental funding.

Officials from the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to investigate the latest outbreak. At least 176 people in 17 states, including 27 in Illinois, have been sickened by a relatively rare type of bacteria called Salmonella Saintpaul. It causes diarrhea, fever and cramps that usually subside after four to seven days. But for infants and the elderly, it can cause much more serious illness and even death.
The first cases linked to raw tomatoes appeared in mid-April. But it wasn’t until June 3 that the FDA began publicly warning consumers about the problem. Even then, the first warnings focused only on New Mexico and Texas.
Congress still has not passed the Food Safety Act of 2007, which would beef up protections. That bill would grant authority to order mandatory recalls of tainted food to both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA. An even better idea would be to merge all the responsibilities for food safety into a single government agency.
But the food safety bill doesn’t contain another much-discussed proposal, one that would require producers to track food products “from farm to fork.” It should be added.

The tomato problem illustrates the need for such a tracking system. The FDA this week told consumers that tomatoes from 30 states or counties are safe to eat. So are cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes and those sold with the vine still attached. But how, exactly, are consumers supposed to know where the tomatoes they see on produce stands and grocery aisles, let alone the ones in prepared restaurant dishes, come from?
Restaurants, groceries and consumers are overreacting, albeit understandably, by staying away from all tomatoes. That will cause the same damage to tomato growers that the 2006 outbreak of tainted spinach caused for growers of leafy green vegetables.
For years, the argument against a tracking system has been that it’s too expensive. Try telling that to people who are sick with salmonella poisoning. Try telling that to spinach and tomato growers who have seen first-hand what the loss of public confidence can cost.