FDA Wants Faster Salmonella Detection

March 2009

In the wake of recent salmonella food poisoning outbreaks involving peanut products and peppers, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is looking for a rapid test for salmonella. Conventional lab methods can take as long as nine days to identify even the most common of food bacteria, and FDA officials have asked the Pentagon, the Homeland Security and Agriculture departments, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help develop a more efficient system.

The delay in bacteria identification has far-reaching consequences: consumers become wary about eating foods and stop buying them, and then food producers lose millions of dollars in sales and recalled products. The FDA says that ideally it will see whether any private companies or academic research centers are working on a rapid test. The next step would be to select two or three methods to evaluate more closely.

One of the reasons it can take so long to identify salmonella is that samples submitted to labs may not contain enough bacteria. More bacteria then have to be cultured in order to make an identification. If initial testing finds salmonella, additional testing is performed to match its genetic fingerprint to the outbreak strain.