Rotten Tomatoes

The FDA confirmed that nine people were sickened by tomatoes from two chain restaurants but want "to see whether or not the outbreak is ongoing" and won't say where the restaurants are located. From the LAT: "The chain's name and restaurant location are confidential, said David Acheson, the associate commissioner of foods for the Food and Drug Administration, during a conference call with reporters. A spokesman for the agency also declined to provide the time frame for the cases -- or say whether the restaurants were in the same state." Alerting the dining public of salmonella-tainted tomatoes at one particular chain would cause widespread panic and hurt sales, but why is that better than the threat of more people getting sick? Because the restaurant lobbyists are hard at work in D.C. [LAT; previously]