Dennie Quill, Contributor

Last year, food scares associated with chocolate, peanut butter, spinach and seafood were reported in Great Britain, Canada and the United States. This year, it is tomatoes which have sickened more than 200 persons in the United States with a rare type of salmonella poisoning.

The first case reportedly took place in mid-April and, since then, there have been dozens of hospitalisation and one death caused by tainted tomato.

Symptoms of salmonella infection include headache, stomach pain, nausea, diarrhoea and vomiting.

How often do you go out for a meal and when you return home your stomach is in turmoil? It is a fact that bacteria can attack food at any point along the path from farm to plate.

Many times we administer home remedies such as a cup of 'bizzy' or antacid and it goes away, but food-related illnesses can have a crippling effect.

According to data from the American Center for Disease Control, 500 to 1,000, or 13 per cent, of all food-related deaths are caused by salmonella infection.

What is troubling in this latest case is the fact that after several weeks, public health agencies in the US are unable to pinpoint the source of the contamination.

Surely, this has to be recognised and seen as a hole in the safety net meant to protect food supply in America. What about us in Jamaica?

Global food industry

The food industry is one that operates on a truly global stage. Once, I visited a restaurant in Barbados. The food was excellent and the ambiance perfect. We did not get the best seats in the house as our table faced the service entrance. The activities on those stairs became a great talking point as we observed the variety of items being brought in.

Based on the labelling, we were able to determine they included dairy products from New Zealand, juices from Trinidad, seafood from Costa Rica, wines from Chile and rice from Guyana.

The point is that food is being accessed from all corners of the earth and one is never sure of the conditions under which produce is grown.

The emergence of new germs, unsanitary processing practices, sanitation issues, and the push to produce food cheaply, are some of the causes of contamination.

Consumers cannot do the monitoring so we depend on public safety agencies to put the right safety procedures in place.

Our supermarket shelves are stocked with a multitude of imported products including fruits and vegetables. As a conscious consumer, I have decided that I will buy only local produce even if they do not look as appealing as the imported stuff.

However, when I have a meal at a restaurant I have no idea where the ingredients were bought.

Because of the global nature of the industry it means that any report of food-borne illness has to be taken seriously by the agriculture ministry, consumer protection agency and public health authorities.

Last year, when I asked how come Cadbury chocolates remained in local stores when they had been cleared off the shelves in England, not one response was forthcoming.

Recalls usually happen after people get sick, which means the product is already on the shelf and consumers ought to be given adequate warning about tainted food.

Tomatoes susceptible to infection

I have learnt that tomatoes are particularly susceptible to infection. The data indicate that since 1990 there have been 13 outbreaks of tomato salmonella in the United States.

It means that we ought to be vigilant about imported tomatoes as well as other products.

I had a conversation with a member of the inspectorate branch of the Bureau of Standards, who was not even aware of the ban on tomatoes In the US.

She assured me that there were some 30 inspectors from the bureau, who monitor imports of all types and visit factories to ensure standards are being upheld.

When I telephoned the quarantine section of the Ministry of Agriculture, the person I spoke with had read of the tomato ban on the Internet. She assured me that a temporary ban had been placed on imported tomatoes since November 2007 (tell that to the farmers in St Elizabeth, who have been feeding their crop to pigs).

I challenged her to visit certain supermarkets in Kingston where imported tomatoes are in fact available. Needless to say, she was nonplussed.

Food safety needs to be a top priority in this country. If we want to prevent the food safety umbrella from collapsing over us then the monitoring agencies have to be beefed-up so they can better perform the twin functions of protection and enforcement.

Send feedback to denniequill@hotmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.