ABSTRACT
Fruit and vegetables have been identified as causing significant morbidity and mortality in North America, and the contribution appears to be increasing. Sivapalasingam et al. report that fruit and vegetables were implicated in 0.7% of reported foodborne outbreaks in the US in the 1970s, rising to 6% of outbreaks in the 1990s. There are some characteristics that are common to these outbreaks. Because the contamination incident often occurs on the farm or at the processor, the number of cases can be substantial and may be spread over a large geographic area. For example, there were three outbreaks identified in the US in 2000, 2001 and 2002 involving cantaloupe and Salmonella Poona. These were multi-state outbreaks, and the 2002 incident involved Canada as well. The whole cantaloupes came from farms in Mexico, and the 2001 and 2002 Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns were indistinguishable, suggesting a common persistent contamination source.
