To scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the tomato is an enigma and the focus of a group of researchers nicknamed “Team Tomato.”

The mystery of the tomato has to do with its vulnerability to contamination by Salmonella, a bacterium that is a common cause of foodborne illness.

From 1973 to 2010, there were 15 multistate outbreaks of illnesses attributed to Salmonella contamination of raw tomatoes, with 12 of these outbreaks taking place since 2000. They resulted in almost 2,000 confirmed illnesses and three deaths, with states in the eastern U.S. hardest hit.

“The conditions in which tomatoes thrive are also the conditions in which Salmonella thrive,” says Eric Brown, Ph.D., director of FDA’s Division of Microbiology. “But the tomato always presented an extra challenge because it is so short-lived. By the time it looked like contaminated tomatoes could be causing illnesses, the harvest would be gone.”

via FDA's Team Tomato Fights Contamination | Food Safety News.