American health officials are issuing a ban on some cilantro imported from Mexico after investigators tied a string of illnesses to fields that were contaminated with human feces and toilet paper.
The Food and Drug Administration said this week that it uncovered the unhygienic conditions in cilantro fields in the Mexican state of Puebla. Since 2012, health officials have been dealing with recurrent bouts of stomach illnesses – each time, fresh cilantro was the suspected culprit.
Over the past three years, Mexican and U.S. health authorities scoured 11 farms and packing houses in the Puebla region, where the cilantro is grown, harvested and processed. Turns out, they came across “objectionable conditions” at eight sites. Five were tied to the outbreaks in the U.S. that left hundreds of people sick.
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Some of the farms didn’t have running water, soap, paper towels or toilet paper. Packaging containers weren’t hygienic and water at one firm tested positive for the cyclospora parasite that sparked the stomach illnesses.
“Conditions observed at multiple such firms in the state of Puebla included human feces and toilet paper found in growing fields and around facilities; inadequately maintained and supplied toilet and hand washing facilities (no soap, no toilet paper, no running water, no paper towels) or a complete lack of toilet and hand washing facilities,” the FDA import alert reads.
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“FDA considers that the most likely routes of contamination of fresh cilantro are contact with the parasite shed from the intestinal tract of humans affecting the growing fields, harvesting, processing or packing activities…,” it said.
The ban will only affect certain shipments of fresh cilantro from Puebla from April through August, corresponding to the timing of the outbreaks. The summer ban will continue in future years unless a company can prove to health authorities that its product is safe.
Read the full FDA notice here.
– With files from the Associated Press
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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