— OPINION — I am lucky to have an epidemiologist on staff. Perhaps Fresh Start needs one too. Let me make a prediction, Fresh Start will eat its press release because the FDA will find more cucumbers that test positive for either Salmonella Africana, Salmonella Braenderup or Salmonella Bareilly in states other than Pennsylvania and there will be more clinical (human) positives for Africana, Braenderup and Bareilly.
Let’s start with the basics. The Salmonella Africana found in samples of the 196 victims of this outbreak share the same whole genome sequence (WGS). This showed that bacteria from sick people’s samples are closely related genetically.
This means that people in this outbreak likely got sick from the same type of food. However, after the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture released test results showing that the Fresh Start cucumbers it tested were positive for a different strain of Salmonella – Salmonella Bareilly. This DOES NOT mean that Fresh Start cucumber are not the source to the Salmonella Africana outbreak and Fresh Start may well also be the source of a different outbreak – Salmonella Braenderup – linked to its cucumbers too.
Epidemiology will tell that tale as well. So Fresh Start do not crow too loudly of your innocence. WGS and epidemiology do not lie.
Here is what the FDA and CDC have said to date: Based on epidemiological information collected by CDC for the Salmonella Africana investigation, as of June 12, 196 people infected with the .
