FDA Clears Suspect Tomatoes

July 17, 2008— -- Consumers got the go-ahead this afternoon to eat tomatoes again, following months of concern that the produce was linked to more than 1,000 cases of salmonella.

The Food and Drug Administration lifted its tomato alert today despite uncertainty about what caused so many illnesses in recent months. Officials cleared tomatoes because the farms that may have shipped them at the beginning of the outbreak in May are no longer harvesting them.

Food safety officials also said Thursday they've found no contamination along the tomato-distribution chain.

Still, confusion remains as the salmonella outbreak continues to make people sick.

"I think it is a sad state of affairs when the most developed country in the world can't figure out where their food contamination is coming from," Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said. "And what it shows is that we definitely need a traceability system for our food."

So far, the outbreak initially believed to be linked to tainted produce has sickened 1,220 people in 42 states and the District of Columbia. Of those, 224 people, or about 18 percent, have been hospitalized. Officials have recorded salmonella illnesses that occurred as recently as July 4, despite food safety experts saying that the epidemic peaked in mid-June.

Now, the focus of the salmonella investigation rests on raw jalapeño and serrano peppers, with the FDA recommending that infants, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems avoid those foods.

Still, the FDA said today that tomatoes may have been responsible for illnesses at the start of the outbreak. When asked if the outbreak could have been due to peppers all along, FDA and Centers for Disease Control officials Thursday declined to speculate.

Food safety officials instead said there could have been cross-contamination between tomatoes and peppers at packing or washing stations before the foods made its way to restaurants and grocery stores. They said that has never happened before in previous outbreaks.

Officials also said they are investigating a Mexican packing facility that handles peppers. That facility, they said, never handled tomatoes.

"We have sympathy for tomato farmers. The problem here is that the FDA's role is to protect public health," said David Acheson, Assistant Commissioner for Food Protection at the FDA. "The science took us in the direction, very clearly of an association with tomatoes. There is no reason to believe that that was wrong."

There's some speculation that the government may have gotten it wrong from the start, sparking a chain of events that caused tens of millions of dollars in damage for farmers as consumers were steered away from a food that may have been safe to eat.

"Our industry has incurred millions and millions of dollars in damages from this outbreak investigation in which tomatoes where incorrectly identified," United Fresh Produce Association president Tom Stenzel said.

"There is absolutely no evidence there could be any cross contamination with tomatoes and really it is about time the FDA made that clear," he said.

ABC News' Brian Hartman, Matt Hosford and Kate Barrett contributed to this report.