Two stories today highlight the problems with tracking the path of contaminated food through the supply chain and how those problems impact public health. In the first story, from Washington Post reporter Annys Shin, we learn federal officials are now backing away from their earlier claim that tomatoes are responsible for the recent outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella. The news — a significant step backwards in identifying the problem, ensuring public health, and restoring peace of mind — comes more than three weeks after the tomato scare burst into the headlines. Shin quotes FDA food safety official David Acheson as saying, "The tomato trail is still hot. It's a question of whether other items are getting hotter." The complexity of the supply chain — which shuffles tomatoes and other produce across state and national boundaries for processing, packaging, and distribution — makes identifying the source of the contamination nearly impossible for FDA. Combine that difficulty with the FDA's resource shortfalls and the Bush administration's rosy outlook on product safety and the situation becomes even grimmer. Meanwhile, as Shin reports, "The outbreak has sickened 869 people in 36 states and the District of Columbia since mid-April." The latest case of illness was reported June 20, two weeks after FDA's national warning. The other story, from Columbus Dispatch reporter Misti Crane, concerns a beef recall targeted in Ohio and Michigan. Nebraska Beef, which supplies Kroger grocery stores, announced the recall after an outbreak of E. coli. Unfortunately, Crane reports, the recall "does not give information that's likely to help you figure out if what's in your refrigerator or freezer is harmful." So while the recall has only been linked to illnesses in Ohio thus far, its effects could be much broader: The nearly 532,000 pounds in question might have been mixed into an undetermined number of pounds of ground beef. It is common practice in meat-grinding facilities to combine product from multiple sources. Beef parts from Nebraska Beef went to other companies in the state and to companies in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. In the area of food safety, it seems like history is repeating itself over and over. A public health crisis prompts a federal response; but officials soon realize they are handcuffed by lack of information and lack of resources. Consumers are left in the dark, barely placated by government promises and too ill-informed to make decisions that could help them protect themselves and their families. Eventually the problem just fades away (for those not sickened by the food in question), with lessons never learned.