The New York Times reports today on the salmonella outbreak in tomatoes that has caused restaurants, grocery stores, and major fast food chains like McDonald's to go tomato-free over the past few days. Saturday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced three prominent tomato varieties — red plum, red Roma, and red round — have been implicated in a recent outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella that has sickened scores of people. A national warning against the consumption of any of the most common types of tomatoes underscores two major problems with our food safety system: tracking and prevention. According to FDA, illnesses have been reported in 16 states from Connecticut to California. The Times reports an FDA spokeswoman as saying, "We are getting closer to identifying the source or sources." Considering FDA has known since April about selected incidences associated with the now-wider outbreak, FDA's comments do not engender much confidence. The size of the produce market and the growing complexity of the supply chain make it virtually impossible to track the source of a contaminated batch. Meanwhile, consumers are left in the dark. Tomato-eaters will have difficulty identifying whether a tomato is from an affected area (FDA says tomatoes from eight states have not been associated with the outbreak) or what they can do to protect themselves. (Click here for more on the public disclosure problem from Andrew Schneider at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.) FDA is also ill-equipped to prevent these kinds of outbreaks, now or in the future. From Times reporter Gardiner Harris: [H]ealth experts said that the many problems that have caused food recalls in recent years, including those involving peanut butter, cantaloupe and spinach, were likely to worsen…. And federal authorities have yet to create a stronger set of rules and enforcement procedures. Many parties — food-safety advocates, food producers, Congressional Republicans and Democrats and even some within the F.D.A. — have said such rules are essential to make food safer. The massive warning on tomatoes may have persuaded President Bush to finally push some federal funding toward consumer safety. Monday, the White House sent Congress a supplemental appropriations request, asking the legislature to give the FDA an extra $275 million for fiscal year 2009 — about 15 percent more than Bush's initial request. $125 million of that money is to go toward food safety. The rest would go toward drug safety, medical device safety, and modernizing the agency's workforce. Over the past few years, the FDA's woes have piled up. The beleaguered agency has struggled to ensure the safety of the nation's food and drug supply. Imported products have proved increasingly vexing; the agency has been unable to adapt its monitoring and enforcement practices in a rapidly changing world economy. Much of FDA's plight has been attributed to a lack of resources, particularly a lack of inspectors. While Congress has expressed bipartisan support in favor of a dramatically increased budget, the Bush administration, until now, has been lukewarm on the idea. Lawmakers welcomed the increased budget request but want it implemented post-haste: [Sen. Arlen] Specter said that administration delays in seeking money for food protection efforts at the food and drug agency amounted to "criminal negligence." "The failure to have these inspections is subjecting people to bodily injury and death," said Mr. Specter, who sent a letter to Mr. Leavitt on Tuesday insisting that the additional money for the F.D.A. should be included in a supplemental request this year, not in next year's budget.