FDA knew about problem peppers months before outbreak.

The FDA insists that they were as surprised as anyone that the salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,423 people this year turned out to be from jalapeno and serrano chili peppers from Mexico. Were they really? An AP investigation of FDA records showed that Mexican peppers had a long history of contamination. FDA Border inspectors apparently turned away contaminated chilis 88 times. This year. That's 491,200 metric tons of rejected peppers.Ten percent of those batches had salmonella. The rest were either filthy, used illegal pesticides, or in one case, were simply poisoned. The USDA reports that 84 percent of all fresh peppers consumed by the United States come from Mexico.

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