U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found salmonella in irrigation water and on a serrano pepper on a farm in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, David Acheson, the administration's associate commissioner announced Wednesday.

Earlier this month, the FDA warned all consumers to avoid raw jalapeno peppers -- and the foods that contain them -- that had been grown, harvested, or packed in Mexico.

The Mexican government rejected the FDA tests and said the sample was from stagnant water in a tank holding rainwater, not water used to irrigate peppers.

"What they took was a sample from soil after the harvest. That is not scientifically valid in any part of the world," Enrique Sanchez, the Agriculture Ministry's director of food health, told Reuters in Mexico City.

The Mexican Embassy in Washington earlier said the government had taken precautionary measure of suspending exports of produce from the company suspected of being the origin of the outbreak.

The Salmonella outbreak, which causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps, has sickened more than 1,300 people since April.

Tomatoes have been the prime suspect in the nationwide outbreak for weeks.

Last week, regulators lifted their warning on tomatoes, not because they were cleared from suspicion but because any that could have been contaminated would have spoiled and been discarded by that time.

(Agencies via Xinhua August 1, 2008)