Source of salmonella-tainted tomatoes may remain a mystery, FDA says

"At this stage of the investigation there is no guarantee that we will be able to trace the outbreak back to the farm level, although that is the goal," David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's associate commissioner for foods, told reporters Thursday.

The agency is still unsure of the geographic area that is the source of the contaminated fruit, though it has focused its probe on growing regions in central Florida and Mexico.

Discovering the source of the salmonella would enable health officials to give the public an all-clear on eating tomatoes and would relieve the financial pressure on farmers, who have been destroying the fruit and losing millions of dollars because shoppers couldn't figure out what tomatoes were safe to consume.

It also would provide crucial information that could prevent future outbreaks.

"We want to get on that farm as quickly as possible and do some environmental sampling and figure out what went wrong," Acheson said.

He said the investigation was proceeding slowly because the tomatoes weren't sold with bar codes and were aggregated into big lots from multiple farms and suppliers.

The slow pace of the investigation has prompted calls for better enforcement on the part of the FDA.

On Thursday, Consumers Union said that the federal agency should increase inspections of food processing plants and that Congress should give the FDA broad mandatory recall authority in light of the recent outbreaks of illness linked to produce.

"The FDA has been understaffed and underfunded for far too long. At the very least, the agency's budget for inspections must be increased so that it is visiting produce processing plants annually, not just once every five to 10 years," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union.

Legislators also heaped criticism on the FDA for the slow pace in the development of a formal food protection plan, a food safety initiative announced by the Bush administration in November.

"Today is no different. We face yet another food crisis. . . . It has sickened people, devastated an entire industry and cost consumers, producers and retailers millions of dollars. Tragically, similar to food crises in the past, FDA has been unable to identify the source of this contamination or even where the tomatoes originated," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.).