Hot New Suspect In Food Poisoning Outbreak: Salmonella Discovered On Texas Jalepenos

There may be a potential break in the hunt for the source of the latest salmonella outbreak. And although it isn't the tomatoes, they haven't been completely cleared yet.

A fresh jalapeño grown in Texas is now the new suspect in the country’s salmonella outbreak. After over a thousand people reporting food poisoning and a halt on tomatoes across the country, researchers at the Food and Drug Administration began to suspect that the tomatoes weren’t the cause but another ingredient in the common thread of the outbreaks: a salsa. And now they may have narrowed it down to these jalapenos. "this genetic match is a very important break in the case," said Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's food safety chief. It still hasn’t been completely confirmed whether the contamination took place at the Agricola Zaragoza packaging center, or the farm in Texas where the Jalapeño was grown, but there is at least an indicator as to where to focus the hunt for the strain of salmonella. It could still be a number of sources that are packaged at the plant, to include tomatoes.