Troubled by the tainted tomato scare, nearly half of Americans are concerned they may get sick from eating contaminated food and are avoiding items they normally would buy, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll has found.

Although three in four remain confident about the overall safety of foods, the poll found that consumers overwhelmingly support setting up a tracing system for produce in the wake of the salmonella outbreak first linked to tomatoes and, now, hot peppers.

Eighty-six percent said produce should be labeled so it can be tracked through layers of processors, packers and shippers, all the way back to the farm. The lack of such a system frustrated disease detectives working on the salmonella outbreak. Although federal officials lifted the tomato warning Thursday, the cause of the outbreak remains unknown.

The poll found that 80% of Americans said they would support new federal standards for fresh produce. Meat and poultry have long been subject to enforceable federal safeguards, but fruits and vegetables are not, although produce increasingly is being implicated in outbreaks.

Christy Taylor, a first-grade teacher from Sacramento, Calif., said she has all but given up on supermarket produce and is buying most of her fresh fruits and vegetables at the local farmers' market instead.

"I see the same farmers every single week," said Taylor, 30, the mother of 2-year-old twin girls. "You meet the people and you see where the (produce) is coming from."

Her twins love tomatoes, she said, and chomp on them as if they were apples. But until the mystery of the tainted tomatoes is solved, "I feel a little bit more comfortable, a little more safe, doing the local farmers' market," Taylor said.

In addition to the salmonella outbreak, this year has seen the largest ground beef recall in history, raising consumer concerns reflected in the poll.

Forty-six percent said they were worried they might get sick from eating contaminated food and that they have avoided foods because of safety warnings that they normally would have purchased. Twenty-nine% have thrown out food earlier than usual and 14% have returned food to the store.

Such a level of uneasiness among consumers is "very significant," said Michael R. Taylor, a former senior federal food safety official who now teaches at George Washington University.

"When you have almost half the population avoiding certain foods because of safety concerns, that's very significant from the standpoint of economic impact for the people selling the food, and from the standpoint of peace of mind for consumers," said Taylor. Tomato growers say they have lost more than $100 million as a result of the current salmonella outbreak, which has sickened more than 1,200 people in 42 states since April.

The poll also found gender, racial and economic gaps on attitudes about food safety. Women, who do most of the shopping, were more concerned than men. For example, 39% of men said they were "very confident" that the food they buy is safe, but only 23% of women said they felt that way. However, men and women agreed on the need for better federal oversight.

"We've got to protect our food supply," said Stephan Weiss, 58, of West Linn, Ore., who runs a small engraving and embroidery business. "And if more inspectors are going to prevent people from getting sick and dying, then it's worth it."

People with lower incomes were less confident in food safety, as were minorities. Nearly half of Hispanics had little or no confidence in the safety of the food they buy.

In Congress, a leading advocate of food safety reforms said the industry would do well to listen to consumers on the need for tracing.

"We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "We've got to work this through with the industry and come up with something that's reasonable. The more confidence consumers have, the more goods they will purchase."

While the produce industry agrees that federal standards for preventing contamination are necessary, there is no consensus on a mandatory tracing system. Cost is a concern, especially for smaller companies.

The poll also found that 56% of consumers do not believe the government has enough inspectors to scrutinize food imports. If more are needed for imports and domestic produce, 70% said the cost should be covered through fees on industry. That echoes a proposal by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The telephone poll of 1,000 adults was conducted July 10-14 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the overall sample.

由于受污染土豆驚嚇之困擾，近一半美國人擔心自己可能因食用受污染食物而致病，并避免購買原來通常購買的食物，這是來自美聯社益普索的一項研究之發現。

盡管四分之三的人仍然對整體食品安全問題充滿信心，調查發現消費者壓倒性地支持建立跟蹤系統，在首次土豆沙門氏菌事件爆發后，現在又是紅辣椒。

86％的受訪者稱農產品應該貼標簽，這樣才能夠進行逐層追蹤，追溯處理者、包裝者、運輸方，最后追蹤到農場。此系統的缺失使得無法進行土豆沙門氏菌爆發的疾病檢測。盡管聯邦政府官員周四提出土豆預警，而爆發事件的原因仍未可知。

調查發現80％的美國人稱他們愿意支持新的新鮮農產品的新聯邦標準。豬肉與牛肉受強制性聯邦保護措施管制，但水果和蔬菜均沒有相應管制措施，而農產品正越來越多地被發現流行性爆發。

加州Sacramento一級教師Christy Taylor說，她現在差不多放棄了超市農產品，轉而到地方農產品市場去購買新鮮水果蔬菜。

“我每一周到同一些農場去”，這位年紀30歲，作為兩歲雙胞胎女兒的母親Taylor說。“你會見這些人并知道這些農產品來自哪兒。”

她的雙胞胎女兒鐘愛吃土豆，她說，喜歡把土豆當蘋果一樣咬來吃。但在污染土豆事件解決前，“我親自去農場買東西，這樣我會感覺安穩一些，安全一些。”她這樣說。

調查發現，除沙門氏菌事件爆發，本年度再次發生歷史上最大的牛肉產品召回事件，進一步引起消費者強烈關注，

46％的受訪者稱他們擔心由于食用污染食品而致命，并稱由于安全警告，他們放棄了一些原來常常購買的食品。29％的人會比以前提前扔掉食品，14％的人已把食品退還商店。

消費者中這種不安程度非常嚴重，Michael R. Taylor說，他是前聯邦食品安全官員，現在是喬治華盛頓大學老師。

“如果有近一半的人由于安全擔憂回避某些食品，站在銷售食品方來說，經濟影響非常嚴重，站在消費者內心安全的角度來看也是如此。”Taylor稱。土豆種植者稱，最近的土豆沙門氏菌事件使他們遭受了1億多美元的損失，沙門氏菌事件自四月以來已致使42個州內的1200多人致病。

調查同時發現有關食品安全問題的態度，存在性別、種族與經濟方面的差異。購物最多的女性比男性更為關注。比如，39％的男性稱他們對所購買的食品安全性很有信心，但只有23％的女性這樣覺得。不過，男性與女性一致同意需要進行更好的聯邦監察。

“我們必須保護我們的食品供應”，來自West Linn, Ore的58歲的小型刺鄉廠業主Stephan Weiss說。“而如果投入更多的檢測人員可以使人們免于生病甚至死亡，那么這都是值得的。”

低收入人群對食品安全信心較低，比如少數民族。近一半移民種族對所購買的食品安全幾乎沒有信心。

國會中，一項有關食品安全的主要主張稱，行業將在跟蹤需要方面做好傾聽消費者心聲的工作。

“我們生活在一個科技時代，連一根香蕉也可以打上條形碼。”Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill說。“我們應該與行業一起完成這項工作，提出一些合理的東西。消費者越有信心，才會購買更多商品。”

盡管農產品行業認同防止污染的聯邦標準是必要的，但沒有達成強制性跟蹤系統的共識。成本是一個考慮，尤其對小公司來說。

調查還發現56％的消費者不相信政府的監測人員足夠進行進口食品的檢查。如果進口與國內農產品需要更多監測人員，70％的受訪者稱成本可以通過行業收費解決。這個意見得到住宅能源與商業委員會主席Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich的回應，為此提出了一個建議方案。

對1000名成年進行的電話調查是7月10－14間進行的，其樣本誤差為總樣本的（＋/－）3.1％。