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Hundreds of children have been sickened by their school lunches.

And even though the FDA knew there was a potential problem at a Chicago tortilla factory, it wasn't shut down.

The culprit: Del Rey tortillas.

Nearly 100 students and teachers at several Racine schools got sick in 2007 after eating lunch. Turns out, they'd all had the tacos that day. The tortillas came from Del Rey in Chicago. Inspectors say those tortillas made kids sick.

"Yeah, everyone was sitting on the floor going, ohhh," Tyler Ottum told us. The student was sickened during the Racine outbreak. "There was a couple people in the hallway that were throwing up because I saw one of the people there screaming," he described the scene that day.

Amy Havemann, a parent of children in the Racine school district, was concerned. "It concerns me because one of my sons eats at school and when he comes home and is sick, I want to know what causes it," she said.

TODAY'S TMJ4 discovered it's not the first time this has happened. In 2003, kids in Massachusetts got sick after eating Del Rey tortillas. In 2005, hundreds of Illinois school kids got sick. Then in 2006, Del Rey recalled tortillas linked to illness in Texas.

Inspection reports obtained from the Food and Drug Administration reveal a pattern of problems.

The FDA visited Del Rey's tortilla factory six times between 2003 and 2008.

Inspectors found cleaners, degreasers, pesticide, and huge drums of hydraulic oil next to the food.

Food was stored in paint buckets. Filthy fans circulated the air over the food line. There was a sewage backup in the food warehouse. One employee apparently blew his nose in his hands, and then went back to working on tortillas without washing his hands.

The FDA finally shut down Del Rey's tortilla factory in March of this year. But why did it take this long?

USA Today has obtained documents showing that Chicago health inspectors urged the FDA to shut down Del Rey two years ago. But scientists never determined what in the tortillas made people sick. It took a second recommendation to get Del Rey shut down.

The FDA's excuse? "If it had been something where people were hospitalized, where there were deaths, obviously we may have treated this situation very differently," says Roberta Wagner, head of compliance for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. "Perhaps we would have moved more quickly."

Del Rey spent six weeks cleaning up and is now open again. There have been no outbreaks reported since.

USA Today's full investigation will be in the November 17, 2009 edition.