Tainted tomato led to arthritis

Friday, June 25, 2010

Staff photo by Bob Hammerstrom Ryan Wilson of Bedford still plays his ukulee and guitar, despite suffering from food poisoning from a bad tomato a few years ago, that left him with arthritis at the age of 16.

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Staff photo by Bob Hammerstrom Sixteen-year-old Ryan Wilson of Bedford plays a video game at his home Thursday, June 17, 2010. The teen ate a tomato in a restaurant laced with salmonella at the age of 13, which made him sick and eventually game him arthritis.

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Staff photo by Bob Hammerstrom Sixteen-year-old Ryan Wilson, left, and his brother, Brendan, 19, hang out with their computers Thursday, June 17, 2010, at their Bedford home.

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Staff photo by Bob Hammerstrom Ryan Wilson of Bedford still plays his ukulee and guitar, despite suffering from food poisoning from a bad tomato a few years ago, that left him with arthritis at the age of 16.

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BEDFORD – Most of us assume that what we eat at restaurants is safe, but 16-year-old Ryan Wilson learned the hard way that this isn’t the case.

Three years ago, Wilson, then 13, ate a BLT sandwich that he ordered “to go” from a local restaurant.

It turned out the sandwich contained salmonella, which eventually gave him arthritis.

For a few days after he ate the sandwich, he felt sick to his stomach but still tried to go to school, figuring he’d get better.

Eventually he became dehydrated, and a few months later he noticed joint pain in his ankles to the point where he needed to be in a wheelchair.

The family was unable to successfully sue the producers of the tomato since it was unclear where it originated, but this could change with the passage of S. 510 in Congress, known as the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

Earlier this year, Ryan and his family traveled to Washington to lobby for the legislation.

Sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and co-sponsored by several other senators, including New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, the bill would require the Food and Drug Administration to be more proactive in developing programs promoting food safety, developing policies to manage food potential food allergy risks in schools, put stricter guidelines on food testing laboratories and improve the capacity to track food from where it is grown or made to where it is eaten.

“Ryan got to see the process in action and he got to visit with some of the staff at some of the different offices.It was great for him to advocate for something that’s very personal to him, it was a great experience for him all around,” said Ryan’s mother Marilu Wilson, of Grafton Drive in Bedford.

“The time between inspections now is a long stretch, and, hopefully, with the passage of the law, it’ll help get more inspections done so this doesn’t happen to other people.”

According to Make Our Food Safe, the coalition that made it possible for Ryan to travel to Washington, food-borne illnesses cost an average of $1,892 an incident and more than $38 million each year in New Hampshire alone, statistics that are similar throughout the nation.

“From what we know, it had a lot of support from what we saw up there, and it should come to a close pretty soon, we hope,” Ryan said.

“In the past year, we have seen far too many cases of people becoming extremely ill due to an unsafe food supply,” said Gregg to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Nov. 18, when the bill was approved by the committee.

“This bipartisan legislation is the right fix to address the challenges facing our food safety system and will go a long way to keep New Hampshire families healthy.”

Even though the worst of the food poisoning is behind him, due to constantly taking medicine, there is no cure for his condition, which he will face for the rest of his life. On certain days, flare-ups can occur, making certain physical tasks difficult. The long-term side effects have driven home to the Wilsons the seriousness of a disease they didn’t think too much about prior to the salmonella-infected sandwich.

“Even though people can recover from it, you never know when you’re going to get it and where you can get it,” Marilu Wilson said. “It can be in everything you’re eating. The seriousness is in how common it can be in things you’re eating every day.”

The whole episode has made the Wilson family more cautious and has changed their eating habits.

“I do look at food a little bit differently, as far as when I purchase tomatoes,” Marilu said. “Sometimes when you get those little nicks and cuts in tomatoes, they sell them to restaurants because they can chop them up and they’re not as pretty as the ones you buy in the store, so I’m a little leery of restaurant-grade tomatoes because tomatoes are a common carrier of salmonella.”