The FDA released a report on the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak linked to mangoes but redacted key information, including the companies involved.
The executive summary of events covers 56 cases, but the states involved have been redacted. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also redacted the names of mango importers, the countries where the fruit was grown, and the names of all companies involved in the outbreak.
Since September 2025, the FDA has been publishing executive summary summaries of events to demonstrate “radical transparency,” praised by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. However, the report has been significantly redacted to protect confidential corporate information.
In February of this year, the nonprofit group Stop Foodborne Illness filed a petition urging the FDA to adopt a policy of disclosing the names of all companies involved in foodborne illness outbreaks, regardless of whether they have related recalls, arguing that the agency’s legal basis for protecting company information is inconsistent. In response, the agency responded that disclosed information is subject to trade secret law.
mango crisis
The FDA received notification from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on November 20, 2025, about a series of illnesses caused by Salmonella Saintpaul. Local and state public health officials interviewed sick people and identified mangoes as a suspect food until the end of December 2025.
The FDA has begun tracing back the mango exposure of six patients at the (modified) point of service, including the (modified) tracing leg, the details of which have also been redacted.
Through backtracking, common mango importers were identified. Importers and countries of origin for the mangoes were removed, despite identifying these sources with “strong epidemiological links and traceback convergence,” according to the FDA report.
The investigation of the outbreak ended in uncertainty, including the provenance of the mangoes due to tracking issues and was impossible due to lack of brand information. Incomplete grower records from importers of record also posed problems for investigators, as did product lots being mixed upon shipment and lack of lot code traceability within production facilities and from distribution centers to retail stores.
The FDA has increased its review of (redacted) suppliers supplying mangoes to the redacted company. Samples were not collected due to the timing of company identification and the end of the harvest season in the edited country of origin.
