Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Salmonella Mystery: What If It were a Terror Attack?

The FBI was forced to payoff a scientist whom they accused of being behind the anthrax attacks, when it was al Qaeda that was behind it. They failed to prevent 9/11 eventhough there were plenty of warnings. Now the government can't find what is behind the Salmonella poisonings. For all we know it could be a terror attack.

The federal government has expanded its investigation into an outbreak of salmonella illness to include items commonly eaten with tomatoes, health officials said Tuesday.

"Tomatoes are not off the hook," said Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration. "It's just that there's clearly a need to think beyond tomatoes."

The outbreak of illness linked to Salmonella Saintpaul, a rare form of the bacteria, has sickened 869 people, 107 of whom have been hospitalized, said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The outbreak began in mid-April, and the most recent case was reported June 20, implying that the outbreak is ongoing, Tauxe said.

More than half the illnesses have been diagnosed in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, Tauxe said.

"It's like a detective trying to solve a case. We often have to rely on people's memories about things that are not very memorable: what they ate last week or the week before," Tauxe said.

He said the original tomato warning was issued after interviews with different people revealed a "strong association" with the consumption of raw tomatoes: More than 80 percent of the cases in the initial case-control study had eaten fresh tomatoes.

Still, many people interviewed may not have realized that the things they ate had different ingredients, Tauxe said.

Acheson said that 10 of approximately 100 laboratories that are part of the country's Food Emergency Response Network have volunteered to expand their testing to the wider array of foods that the agency is focusing on.

Acheson would not divulge what those other foods are.

1 comment:

BabyBoomerQueen said...

Good point and I thought of that at the very first post...and I know who clever the government is in hiding what it does not want the basic mass populas to know...look at UFO's...like we are the only and the smartest anywhere...that's a huge belly laugh!

Any way back to the slamonella out break...if it were a terrorist plot...more people would have beem ill and not just ill but dying from salmonella!

I say this because that is how a terrorist thinks...make a statement...get in get out...make that point and yo are not safe.

NO, it wasn't terrorists. Now, as far as some nut case being out there...that is another story.

Please come and see all of my posts on salmonella.

That is an official invitation. [wink!]

southern smiles and world peace,
Sharon
The Baby Boomer Queen
www dot babyboomeradvisorclub dot com