FDA has closed an investigation into salmonella outbreaks in romaine lettuce in 2020 and 2021 after failing to trace the contamination to its original source.
In partnership with CDFA, the agency took samples from 14 farms in the Salinas Valley that were potentially linked to the foodborne illnesses. While the surveillance effort led to a separate detection on one farm before harvest, it did not find enough evidence to link specific farms to the earlier outbreaks.
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In a report issued last week, the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition noted that tracking the sources and routes of contamination on leafy greens is “very difficult to discern and that sampling and retrospective investigations, alone, are not sufficient to glean the root causes of outbreaks.”
On that note, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning consumers of an E. coli outbreak in raw cheeses. The products came from a Fresno County dairy and have led to 10 illnesses and four hospitalizations across four states.
