E. coli Blog - Surveillance & analysis on e. coli news & outbreaks

All of the spinach implicated in the current outbreak has traced back to Natural Selection Foods LLC of San Juan Bautista, California. This determination by the FDA is based on epidemiological and laboratory evidence obtained by multiple states and coordinated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 


To date, 187 cases of illness due to E. coli O157:H7 infection have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including 29 cases of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), 97 hospitalizations and one death.

Test results show that a 2-year-old who died after eating spinach was sickened by E. coli bacteria, but it's too soon to conclusively link the boy's illness with the nationwide tainted spinach case.


The Associated Press reported Kyle Allgood, who would have turned 3 in December, died Sept. 20 at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. He had developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can strike those ill with E. coli.

Seattle-based attorney Bill Marler, who says he represents 86 victims in 25 states, called the payment of out-of-pocket expenses "a good first step." Marler -- who has made a career representing victims of food-borne illnesses, beginning with the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak -- said he has spoken with attorneys for Natural Selection and Dole. "It's a good thing then a corporation does that early rather than waiting forever," he said. "I encouraged them to do it for everyone, not just my clients, and obviously that's what they've done. And I commend them for doing it."

The nine bags of baby spinach now linked by DNA testing to the national E. coli outbreak all held conventional rather than organic produce and all were sold under the Dole label, state health officials said Thursday in an interview with the LA Times.



The nine bags were packaged by Natural Selection Foods at the same facility in San Juan Bautista on August 15th.
 

Two bags of Dole baby spinach that tested positive for the E. coli strain that has sickened 175 people nationwide were packaged at the same plant on the same day, California health officials told The Associated Press Monday.

That information has helped investigators tracing the source of the tainted greens narrow their search to nine farms in three California counties linked to grower Natural Selection Foods LLC.



The tainted bags, which were found in Utah over the weekend and in New Mexico last week, were processed at Natural Selection Food’s San Juan Bautista plant during the same shift on August 15, 2006. The firm packages spinach under many brand names, including Dole.



It is too soon to say whether any other brands besides Dole would turn out to have been contaminated. Inspectors are focusing exclusively on Natural Selection at this point.
 

The Monroe County resident sickened by eating E. coli-tainted spinach is suing companies in California and Delaware for an illness that required a trip to the hospital.

It was reported in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that Rochester lawyer Paul Nunes filed a complaint in U.S. District Court late Tuesday afternoon on behalf of his client, Patricia Ann McCoy of Pittsford, who alleges she contracted a severe gastrointestinal illness after eating a bag of Dole brand baby spinach she bought from Martin's Super Food Store in Perinton on or about August 21st, 2006.

McCoy ate a number of spinach salads in late August, and on August 31st began experiencing abdominal cramps and diarrhea. McCoy alleges her symptoms worsened to bloody diarrhea and on September 3rd she went to Highland Hospital, where she received intravenous fluids and had diagnostic tests done. She left the hospital later that evening.

The local health department began an investigation after more than a dozen people came down with a severe stomach ailment. We first brought you the story when doctors diagnosed three of deputy Mark King's children with an E. coli infection. Health investigators also determined that five other people contracted the bacteria. 



WDEF News 12's Rebecca Cruz reports the probe indicates several of the victims ate at Ryan's Buffet in Hixson. Ten of 14 people who got sick back in July say they ate at Ryan's Buffet in Hixson. Investigators now confirm that eight of them contracted the E. coli bacteria. Five dined at Ryan's on July 8th. 


According to a statement released by the FDA, 183 cases of illness due to E. coli O157:H7 infection have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to date, including 29 cases of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, 95 hospitalizations and one death.

Maryland public health officials said yesterday that three of the state's four pending cases of E. coli O157 illness are not linked to a nationwide outbreak caused by bad spinach.

Officials told the Washington Post they continue to investigate the death of an 86-year-old Hagerstown woman and hope to receive test results within a week. But those results might prove inconclusive, because of problems associated with a sample.  All told, only three of the state's 10 cases have conclusively been linked to the bad bagged spinach from California.

The nationwide outbreak, which has infected 175 people in 25 states, has been traced to fresh spinach from three counties in and around Salinas Valley in California, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among those ill, the CDC said, 53 percent were hospitalized; 16 percent developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome; and an adult in Wisconsin died. Two other deaths -- a child in Idaho and the Hagerstown woman -- might be linked to the bad spinach.
 

Doctors from the FDA, CDC and Washington University School of Medicine held a conference call earlier today to update the medical community on the E. coli outbreak according to The Associated Press.

In addition to providing an update on cases and recalls, the scientists also offered this advice: Don't cook raw spinach in an attempt to kill E. coli.

While cooking raw spinach to a temperature of 160°F for 15 seconds can kill the bacteria, the scientists pointed out that few consumers have the ability to precisely gauge the temperature at which their food is being cooked; consumers who handle raw spinach also run the risk of cross-contaminating other foods. Consumer Reports concurs.

While you should still be able to cook and consume frozen and canned spinach, you should avoid all raw spinach and raw spinach-containing foods, and should not attempt to cook raw spinach.

A Canadian woman was recently hospitalized after eating spinach from the United States tainted with E. coli bacteria according to a Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesman. 
In an interview with AFP, it is reported that the strain killed one woman and made 172 people ill in 25 US states in recent months, prompting a massive dumping of spinach from store shelves throughout the continent.

Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacteria causes diarrhea, often with bloody stool. Although most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, some people's kidneys fail from hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Ninety-two Americans have been hospitalized since the first case was reported on August 2, US officials said, and a large number of them have experienced some degree of kidney failure.

In the United States, an estimated 73,000 cases of E. coli infection, 61 of which end in death, occur each year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

North of the border, the CFIA advised consumers not to eat fresh US spinach, "including bagged, loose in bulk or in salad blends."

After a story ran Friday in The Morning Herald and The Daily Mail, reporters and television satellite trucks waited outside the home of Warren and Corinne Swartz of Hagerstown.

The couple received many interview requests after word got out about the death of Corinne’s mother, June E. Dunning, from E. coli, possibly due to tainted spinach.

 After a day to themselves, the Swartz’s invited media into their home on Saturday to share memories of Dunning, and retell the days before she died September 13th at age 86.



Dunning’s death certificate lists E. coli 0157:H as a cause, but Warren Swartz said Saturday that other paperwork confirms the strain as 0157:H7. That is the strain that has sickened at least 166 people in 25 states who ate fresh spinach, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

A Wisconsin woman’s death has been attributed to bad spinach.  The deaths of Dunning — who ate bagged spinach three times in five days before she was hospitalized — and a 2-year-old Idaho boy are being studied for possible connections to the outbreak.
 

Medical News Today reports that of the 166 cases of E. coli poisoning reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 88 were hospitalized and 27 developed hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure. 118 of all patients were female, 48 were male (12 were children).

One person from Wisconsin has died. Two more people are thought to have died as a result of becoming ill after eating raw spinach infected with E. coli O157:H7. 



31% of the infected children, 7% of adults aged 18-59, and 16% of people over 60 developed hemolytic-uremic syndrome. 90% of people who became ill did so between August 19th and September 5th.

The federal disease detectives now tracking bad spinach heard the first alarms on an otherwise quiet Friday, 14 days ago.

Since then, the food-borne illnesses have spread to at least 23 states. Hot on the heels have been scientists and public health officials, who are deploying the microscope, the Internet and an adrenaline-laced intellect familiar to fans of the CSI television franchise.

The McClatchy Tribune reports that Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now have about 80 people devoted to tracking the outbreak of E. coli-related diseases. Some investigators are members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, working closely with state health departments. Some of their tools were forged in the wake of past E. coli outbreaks.

On September 7, a 77-year-old retired bank clerk from a small Wisconsin town bordering Lake Michigan died from kidney failure attributed to E. coli. Several children had also fallen severely ill in early September, and a total of five adults had been stricken. So September 8, Wisconsin officials signed onto a password-protected federal database called PulseNet and filed reports of what they had.

Coordinated by the CDC, PulseNet is a network that was created after a 1993 E. coli outbreak. It includes a database stocked with some 32,000 images of E. coli samples. An Internet chat room enables officials to share observations.

Several thousand miles away, Oregon officials were sifting through their own evidence.  Not yet aware of the Wisconsin cases, Oregon public health officials learned of three E. coli cases shortly after 6 p.m. on September 8.

But by September 12, two more E. coli cases appeared in Oregon. That said Dr. William Keene, Oregon's senior epidemiologist, "kicked into high gear" the state's detective efforts. Melissa Plantenga, a special-studies coordinator with the Oregon Department of Human Services, set about calling the five victims with a 400-question survey.

"It's essentially a laundry list of every food we can imagine," Keene said. "The thing that jumped out at us was that four out of the five said they had eaten bagged spinach."

Plantenga, a 30-year-old researcher who had previously tracked contaminated almonds, then punched "spinach and E. coli" into the Google search engine. Bingo. She found a 2003 case in which 13 residents of Sequoias Retirement Village in California's Portola Valley were sickened after eating raw spinach.

State and private-public health labs handle the hands-on scientific work. They pick through the bloody stools of patients in search of what's formally called Escherichia coli 0157:H7. The numbers help catalog the bacteria, which are barely 2 microns long. That's tiny. The period at the end of this sentence may be about 615 microns wide.

Widespread warnings against eating fresh spinach from the United States because of an E. coli outbreak in at least 19 states have given a whole new meaning to the health dictum "Eat your greens" - not just for consumers trying to stay healthy but for lawyers.

The Montreal Gazette reports that spinach-related outbreak and continuing scares about any spread to humans of avian influenza and BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, raise new challenges for those involved in the question of liability - or determining who is responsible - for harm connected to the production, distribution and consumption of food.

The spinach crisis provided unexpected topicality yesterday for an all-day session of the International Bar Association annual congress titled “Food Safety from Farm to Fork - Who Is Liable for Unsafe Food?"

On the food side, supply and distribution for the world's consumer tables have become more global than ever before at a time when new pathogens are appearing and can spread more easily because of international human travel.

While lawyers in international law associations are struggling to bring the issues forward "to start to develop a conceptual framework," regulators and food companies are also wrestling with the new reality. 


We have now have 250 types of bacteria, parasites, viruses, toxins that will cause food-borne illness, what we call food poisoning, and 50 years ago, we only knew about 50 of them.

E. coli, or 015:H7 bacteria, was only clearly identified a little more than 10 years ago, with the first notable case being the death of four children in 1993 from so-called hamburger disease, or eating undercooked meat.

Additionally, technology has enabled quicker and more detailed analysis. That has sometimes led to recalls or product notifications by companies who consequently face millions of dollars in losses whether or not a real threat is present.

Businesses throughout the food-supply chain also increasingly have to bear the cost of new demands by large retailers who are insisting on the new concept of "traceability," or insisting that suppliers provide warranties or guarantees as to where the ingredients came from or were 
processed.

Still, the specter of a potential flood of class-action suits with more food-related health outbreaks remains ever present.  Health Canada estimates that one in three Canadians will be affected by some kind of food-borne illness each year.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that investigations into the latest in a 10-yr string of E. coli outbreaks is forcing food producers to re-examine their entire process, tracing a path from the seed in the ground to the salad on the table.

This time the tainted produce is spinach, with one death and 146 people sickened in 23 states after eating contaminated spinach traced back to the Salinas Valley. This valley has been implicated in eight of 19 previous outbreaks of potentially deadly E. coli O157:H7 since 1995, most involving lettuce.

This past week, investigators fanned out across the Salinas fields, suspecting the most likely source of contamination initially is on the farm somewhere.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has credited the boom in spinach and lettuce sales to the advent in the early 1990s of pre-washed greens in sealed bags. California farmers sold $258 million of spinach last year alone, a huge jump from the $56 million sold in 1995.

Growers say they're constantly fine-tuning the way they prepare the soil, irrigate, fertilize and harvest. The industry also follows its own guidelines. Despite such voluntary guidelines, contamination of a crop from a neighboring cow pasture seems a reasonable possibility when one takes a drive along Metz Road between Soledad and King City. Along this winding two-lane road, cattle graze just uphill from farms, and ditches take potentially manure-tainted rainwater through culverts directly into fields full of lettuce.

Scientists are also looking at the next stage: harvesting. They are looking into whether or not workers are failing to follow proper hygiene practices, or if occasional government inspections actually guarantee that iceberg lettuce isn't tainted by a dirty knife the moment it's removed from the ground.

It's likely to be at least another week before federal and state investigators conclude their search of Salinas Valley farms, looking for the source of the nationwide E. coli outbreak in spinach.

The Monterey County Herald reports that regulators told the industry that the investigation -- along with guidelines the industry is now working on to strengthen food safety processes -- will be key prerequisites for the Food and Drug Administration to lift a week-old warning against all fresh spinach.

 

Even as government health experts urge Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables, federal rules for protecting consumers from such hazards as the current E. coli outbreak from contaminated spinach are weaker than for meat and poultry.

And as food-borne illnesses attributed to produce appear to be rising, budget squeezes have federal regulators retreating rather than attacking. Compliance with safety guidelines on the handling of produce is voluntary and federal inspectors conduct fewer and fewer checkups, according to government documents and LA Times interviews with consumer groups and a top former Food and Drug Administration official. 



For example, since the FDA hired inspectors in the wake of bioterrorism concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government has been steadily thinning their ranks. The number of FDA staff in field offices around the country shrank from 2,217 in 2003 to 1,962 currently, budget documents indicate.

 

The spinach-packaging company in the cross hairs of an investigation into a nationwide E. coli outbreak has struggled to manage its wastewater and is in violation of a state water disposal permit, according to public records and state officials.

The Sacramento Bee reports that there is no indication these problems at Natural Selection Foods contributed to the current outbreak; by Wednesday investigators had not pinpointed a single source. But federal officials said wastewater management and processing habits at Natural Selection and other companies have not been ruled out.

The Washington Post says Drew and Myra Goodman, the husband-and-wife produce team whose business is at the center of the E. coli spinach crisis in California's Salinas Valley, did not plan on becoming farmers.

They grew up in Manhattan. Drew's father was an art dealer. Myra's father was a jewelry manufacturer. They went to college in California -- Drew in Santa Cruz, Myra in Berkeley -- and stayed. The reason: a 2 1/2 -acre raspberry farm in the back of a Carmel Valley home, an 
investment property of Myra's family where the couple was living in a guesthouse. 



To pass some time before graduate school, they opened a roadside farm stand. They grew raspberries, and baby greens, which they sold to a local chef. What they had left over, they packed in plastic bags to eat during the week. When the chef left town, they decided to sell the packaged greens to grocery stores on consignment. Those little plastic bags, coupled with the rise of busy consumers trying to eat more healthfully, led to a $360 million-a-year produce business.
 

KUTV of Salt Lake City is reporting that an Idaho toddler has died in a Utah hospital from a kidney disease associated with E. coli infection. The infection may be linked to the national outbreak traced to contaminated packaged spinach, health officials said.

Kyle Algood, 2, of Chubbuck, Idaho, died Wednesday at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City from hemolytic-uremic syndrome, said Dr. Christine Hahn, said epidemiologist for the Idaho Department of Health. The boy was flown to the Utah hospital earlier in the day from Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello, Idaho.
 

The warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration says that bagged spinach is likely the cause of an outbreak of E. coli infections, strikes fear in the hearts of many parents.

Spinach is the poster child of healthy eating -- replete with vitamins, minerals, possibly healthful antioxidants such as beta-carotene -- it has long been a food that parents lovingly urge on reluctant children. Because diets with ample amounts of fruits and vegetables are associated with better health, consumers have been looking for ways to incorporate them more frequently and conveniently into their diets.



Ruth Kava of the American Council on Science and Health reports that producers of fresh produce have responded by making it easier for busy consumers to get their fruits and veggies in as convenient a way as possible. Now, one can find pre-cut fruits and salad fixings in virtually any large grocery store in the country. Although these items are supposedly washed and ready for consumption when purchased, sometimes accidents occur.



A couple of years ago, some pre-washed, bagged organic lettuce was found to be contaminated with E. coli -- probably because of the use of manure-contaminated water when it was washed. Now, we have outbreaks of E. coli infections in eight states, according to the CDC, apparently stemming from consumption of bagged fresh spinach.

California produce growers and processors worked to draw up new food-safety measures as government investigators trying to pinpoint the source of the deadly E. coli outbreak narrowed their search to three counties.

Western Growers, an industry group representing about 3,000 fruit and vegetable farmers in California and other states tells The Associated Press they plan to unveil a proposal Thursday for protecting produce from the bacteria that have killed one person and sickened at least 146 others across the country since last month.

Investigators found a contaminated bag of Dole baby spinach Wednesday at the New Mexico home of a person who fell ill. The spinach was packaged by Natural Selection Foods, a San Juan Bautista company that packages salad greens sold under dozens of brands.

After analyzing the strain of E. coli bacteria in the bag, investigators said they believe it probably originated in at least one of nine farms and several processing plants in California's Monterey, San Benito or Santa Clara counties.

E. coli is often spread by human or animal waste. Inspectors have been looking at the possibility that the germ was spread by contaminated irrigation water, workers relieving themselves in the fields, or some other means.

The expanding E. coli spinach outbreak, which now has sickened 146 victims in 23 states, is prompting calls for an overhaul of how food inspection is done in the United States, with a focus on getting rid of a patchwork approach that leads to loopholes and leaves the industry mostly policing itself.

Mary Anne Ostrum, Lisa Kreiger and Ken McLaughlin of the San Jose Mercury News reported that demands from top consumer groups and others came as the federal Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that a bag of spinach found in the refrigerator of a sickened New Mexico resident definitively links the outbreak to Natural Selection Foods. The San Juan Bautista company has already recalled nearly three dozen brands of spinach that it processes.



Through codes on the bag, the FDA has traced the spinach back to a growing region encompassing Monterey, San Benito and Santa Clara counties. 

Still, officials recommend that consumers avoid eating any fresh spinach products.

Late last week, the spinach industry came to a halt as E. coli bacteria has been found in pre-packaged bags of fresh -- not canned -- spinach across the country.

Arizona’s KVOA News 4 reported that The Centers for Disease Control is warning everyone to toss out any bags of fresh spinach, no matter what the brand. 



Tainted spinach has been found in 23 states, mostly in the west, and now you can add Colorado and Arizona to the list.   One person is dead, 146 people are sick and 76 hospitalized as a result of the contamination.
 

Monterey County officials say legislation that has been proposed to ban the use of water reclaimed from sewage for irrigating vegetable fields that could impact the state's agricultural industry and its water supply.

Monterey County officials say legislation that has been proposed to ban the use of water reclaimed from sewage for irrigating vegetable fields that could impact the state's agricultural industry and its water supply. 



A report by Kevin Howe in the Monterey County Herald  says State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield, a former chairman of the Assembly Agricultural Committee, has called for laws governing crops and packaging that would ban the use of reclaimed sewage water in organic vegetable crops and possibly nonorganic crops. 



The proposal comes on the heels of reports of E. coli-contaminated spinach in the Salinas Valley. Much of the irrigation water used on crops on the west end of the Salinas Valley has been reclaimed from sewage.

Once a readily accessible media darling celebrated for its eco-friendly business practices and humble beginnings, Earthbound Farm shied away from public scrutiny almost entirely Wednesday after investigators found E. coli bacteria in spinach that had been processed at the company's San Juan Bautista plant.

During a hastily called news conference, Earthbound Farm spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna read a prepared statement and answered a few questions before being hustled back into the plant by company officials, according to The Monterey County Herald.

Cabaluna acknowledged that the E. coli-contaminated Dole baby spinach is directly connected to Earthbound Farm. She said all Dole spinach is processed by the local plant, although Cabaluna pointed out that some Dole spinach is not grown by Earthbound Farm.

However, Cabaluna stopped short of acknowledging that Earthbound Farm is a possible source for the nationwide E. coli outbreak.
 

The state laboratory in Frankfort has confirmed a seventh case of E. coli bacteria infection thought to be linked to the nationwide outbreak from tainted fresh spinach.

A male teen-aged Kenton County resident received outpatient treatment for the illness, a particular strain of E. coli O157:H7, said Gwenda Bond, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department for Public Health reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Of the six previously confirmed cases, an Oldham County woman remains hospitalized. In addition to the Kenton County case, two cases have been identified in Oldham County, two in McCracken, one from Hopkins and one from Jefferson.

The Department for Public Health also reminds people to continue to avoid eating fresh spinach products to avoid potential infection.
 

When food turns deadly, old-fashioned detective work, modern technology and an appropriate sense of urgency are the best weapons to fight back. All have been employed in an outbreak of E. coli bacteria, which has sickened 146 people in 23 states and caused the death of one since August 2nd.

Detection and warning are what the government does best in these cases. Preventing outbreaks is a more complex task, much of which properly falls on the produce industry. Surely, it has every incentive to do better. While suspicion has centered on packaged spinach sold by one company, the entire industry has taken a huge financial hit. Federal officials are investigating farms in California's Salinas Valley, nicknamed America's Salad Bowl, looking for the elusive source of the bacteria. Since 1995, 19 outbreaks of E. coli sickness have come from fresh-cut lettuce or spinach — three of them linked to the Salinas Valley just since 2002 says USA Today.

But primary responsibility for safety lies with the produce industry. It might look to almond producers for cues.

If spinach is to regain its reputation as a health food, consumers ought to be able to eat it with confidence and without the need for government inspectors to turn over each new leaf.
 

Health officials in New Mexico positively identified a deadly strain of E. coli in a bag of spinach yesterday, providing a crucial clue that investigators say can be used to trace the source of an outbreak that has sickened 146 people.

Until now, the evidence implicating spinach has been circumstantial.

The E. coli outbreak, which was reported a week ago, has led to the leafy vegetable's banishment from restaurants and dinner tables across the country and is threatening the spinach industry with severe damage. Losses are estimated at up to $100 million if the crisis lasts just a month, and the industry has been hoping for a quick resolution in order to stem long-term damage. Nutritionists and food-policy experts said public fears about spinach could extend to other popular produce, such as bagged salads. Even though there have been 20 E. coli outbreaks from spinach or lettuce since 1995, this one has attracted the most attention because it has the most victims, with one death, another death suspected and the number of illnesses climbing by 15 yesterday. Two more states, Arizona and Colorado, reported cases yesterday.

The uncertainty has virtually shut down the fresh spinach industry reports the Washington Post.

Federal officials yesterday narrowed the source of the outbreak to three counties, Monterey, Santa Clara and San Benito, in and around the greater Salinas Valley. The germ was found in a bag of Dole baby spinach, marked best used by Aug. 30. Acheson said the spinach was processed by Natural Selection Foods LLC, saying the code on the bag fit with information provided by the company, which has previously been linked to the outbreak.

And officials reiterated that no one should consume fresh spinach until they lift their warning.

The Salinas Valley is a dominant area for spinach production in California, which produces roughly 74 percent of the country's fresh spinach, thanks in large part to Natural Selection's Earthbound Farm and its innovative bagged produce. California recorded $258 million in spinach sales last year. In Monterey County, sales of spinach reached $188.2 million last year, up from $56 million in 1995.

Spinach is grown in 80-inch beds and harvested mechanically, at a cost of about $33,500 an acre. Farmers with hundreds of acres, who may lose more than one crop before the end of the growing season in November, stand to suffer big losses, according to Richard F. Smith, a farm
adviser in the University of California Cooperative Extension program in Monterey County. Last year, 17,000 acres in the county were planted with spinach.

As a leafy green vegetable, which nutritionists would like Americans to eat more of, spinach is known as being a good source of fiber and vitamin A, as well as iron, vitamin C and folic acid. "It's a pretty
power-packed vegetable compared with iceberg lettuce," said Reed Mangels, nutrition adviser for the Vegetarian Resource Group.

There are other sources of leafy vegetables that provide similar nutritional value: kale, collard greens, mustard greens, arugula. Some of those have already become a replacement for dishes containing spinach in restaurants. Also, frozen and canned spinach are not included in the warning.
 

Farmers and food safety officials still have much to figure out about the recent spate of E. coli infections linked to raw spinach. So far, no particular stomache-ache has been traced to any particular farm irrigated by any particular river.

There is also no evidence so far that Natural Selection Foods, the huge shipper implicated in the outbreak that packages salad greens under more than two dozen brands, including Earthbound Farm, O Organic and the Farmer’s Market, failed to use proper handling methods says the New York Times.

Indeed, this epidemic, which has infected more than 100 people and resulted in at least one death, probably has little do with the folks who grow and package your greens. The detective trail ultimately leads back to a seemingly unrelated food industry — beef and dairy cattle. First, some basic facts about this usually harmless bacterium: E. coli is abundant in the digestive systems of healthy cattle and humans, and if your potato salad happened to be carrying the average E. coli, the acid in your gut is usually enough to kill it.

Where does this particularly virulent strain come from? It’s not found in the intestinal tracts of cattle raised on their natural diet of grass, hay and other fibrous forage. No, O157 thrives in a new — that
is, recent in the history of animal diets — biological niche: the unnaturally acidic stomachs of beef and dairy cattle fed on grain, the typical ration on most industrial farms. It’s the infected manure from
these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms.

Unfortunately, it would take more than a week to reduce the contamination of ground water, flood water and rivers — all irrigation sources on spinach farms — by the E-coli-infected manure from cattle farms.
 

William Marler, a nationally-recognized food safety advocate and attorney, today called on the spinach industry "to do the right thing and immediately pay the medical bills for the victims of this most recent outbreak traced to E. coli-contaminated spinach," according to the Associated Press. Marler noted that, in other large outbreaks, companies such as Jack in the Box, Odwalla, Chi-Chi's and Sheetz advanced medical costs for outbreak victims whose illnesses were traced to their food products.

To date, the Food and Drug Administration has reported that 131 people have been confirmed as victims of the outbreak, 20 victims developing hemolytic uremic syndrome, a potentially lethal complication of E. coli O157:H7 infection. “With such devastating injuries, and so many of them,” Marler continued, “I hope that the people responsible for this outbreak will stop trying to shift the blame or think of more excuses. The FDA has warned the lettuce and spinach industry repeatedly about its problems and deficiencies.” Marler noted that this latest outbreak is the twentieth outbreak since 1995 associated with lettuce or spinach.

Marler’s Seattle-based law firm, Marler Clark, is representing 31 victims of the outbreak, including twelve people who developed HUS. The firm has filed three lawsuits to date—in Utah, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

Since 1993, Marler has represented thousands of victims of E. coli, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Listeria, Shigella, Campylobacter and Norovirus illnesses in over thirty States. In 1998, Marler and his current law partners formed OutBreak, a non profit food safety organization. Marler dedicates one-fourth of his time to travel to food-industry conferences, giving speeches about how to prevent foodborne illness litigation.
 

Two possible cases of E. coli in Nebraska may have been passed from person to person, and not come directly from eating tainted spinach.

That brings the total confirmed Nebraska cases to seven, with four more possible cases.

The two secondary cases are people who live with someone who became ill after eating spinach according to the Associated Press

According to the Associated Press Nationally, the outbreak has sickened at least 146 people in 23 states. One person has died and 76 others have been hospitalized, some with kidney failure as a result of hemolytic uremic syndrome.
 

The nationwide E. coli outbreak from bagged spinach could seriously dampen the popularity of prewashed, packaged salads with time-pressed and diet-conscious Americans, reports the Associated Press.

The Food and Drug Administration's announcement Wednesday that the bug that sickened hundreds of people matched a strain was found in an opened bag of Dole spinach.

So far, there has been no evidence the source of the outbreak can be traced to the packaging process or that the salad bags themselves breed bacteria such as E. coli, which is found in animal and human waste.

Seattle lawyer Bill Marler, who has represented dozens of clients in lawsuits connected to contaminated bagged leafy greens, said he's representing more than 30 clients from 12 states over the current E. coli outbreak. He said he reached a settlement for his clients with the company in five previous cases.

Based on past experience, Marler said he suspects bacteria-tainted irrigation or flood water is behind the current outbreak. "Plants like spinach and lettuce can absorb not just water but bacteria," Marler said. "All the washing and rinsing and triple washing and nice bags with smiley faces on them mean nothing because the product is then just a little tiny bomb waiting for someone to eat it."

Packaged greens, a category the industry calls "value-added" produce, was invented by a Salinas company, Fresh Harvest, in the late 1970s. Today, leading processors such as Fresh Express, NewStar and River Ranch Foods are based in Salinas.
 

"Fresh fruits and vegetables are good for us; we should eat more," say Dr. Douglas Powell and Ben Chapman of the FoodSafety Network. Yet, they also remind us that fresh fruits and vegetables are one of, if not the most, significant source of foodborne illness today in North America, with an estimated 76 million illness and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each and every year.

In the past 10 years the FoodSafety Network has worked with individual farmers and grower groups dedicated to producing safe produce by helping them to provide the data to support their claims of safety.

Dr. Douglas Powell is scientific director of the Food Safety Network at Kansas State University and Ben Chapman is a PhD student at the University of Guelph in Canada. They are the authors of, most recently, a book chapter entitled Implementing On-Farm Food Safety Programs in Fruit and Vegetable Cultivation, in the recently published Improving the Safety of Fresh Fruit and Vegetables.

They urge produce growers and processors to take food safety seriously for the health of consumers, if they are to remain in the industry.
 

First published in 1997 but still pertinent today, the Institute of Food Technologists' scientific status summary on E. coli O157:H7 describes the pathogen, its ability to infect, the inherent difficulties to inactivate it, and much more.

Titled Foodborne Disease Significance of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Other Enterohemorrhagic E. coli, the six-page document (plus references) and a one-page editorial is available to the public at www.ift.org.

Founded in 1939, and with world headquarters in Chicago, IFT is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 22,000 members working in food science, technology and related professions in industry, academia and government.
 

With fresh spinach linked to an unusually virulent outbreak that has killed one and sickened 130, the region has vaulted to new fame: the E. coli capital of America.

According to the LA Times, the whirlwind of health warnings and media reports over the past five days has tarnished the reputation of its growers and processors so severely that experts predict some farms with large spinach crops may fail.

Though they have tentatively linked some of the illnesses to Natural Selection, federal regulators have, in an abundance of caution, recommended against eating any fresh spinach, organic or otherwise, which has brought the spinach harvest to an abrupt halt, affecting smaller growers’ and workers’ finances.
 

Five more cases of E. coli in Nebraska have been linked to tainted spinach that's killed one person and sickened more than 130 people across the country.

Three people in Nebraska have been hospitalized, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star. The afflicted range in age from 13 to 83.

About half of those with the food poisoning in this national outbreak were hospitalized, according to the CDC. E. coli causes diarrhea, often with bloody stools. Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, although some people — including the very young and old — can develop hemolytic uremic syndrome, a form of kidney failure that often leads to death.

Natural Selection Foods LLC, a San Juan Bautista company whose multiple brands many people reported eating before falling sick, has recalled spinach products distributed throughout the United States.

Salinas-based River Ranch Fresh Foods recalled spring salad mixes containing spinach purchased from Natural Selection.

On Tuesday, a third company said it was voluntarily recalling salad mixes that may contain spinach supplied by Natural Selection. RLB Food Distributors LP, based in West Caldwell, N.J., said the recall included various salad mixes sold under the Balducci’s and FreshPro brands and distributed on the East Coast.
 

Twenty-one states have been affected by the national spinach-related E. coli outbreak. Of the 131 cases nationwide, 66 people have been hospitalized with acute E. coli O157:H7 infections, including 20 with kidney failure, and one adult in Wisconsin died.

The breakdown of how many cases by state was provided by the CDC:

Caliornia 1
Connecticut 2
Idaho 5
Illinois 1
Indiana 8
Kentucky 6
Maine 2
Michigan  4
Minnesota 2
Nebraska 6
Nevada 2
New Mexico 5
New York 9
Ohio 15
Oregon 5
Pennsylvania 6
Utah 16
Virginia 1
Washington 2
Wisconsin 32
Wyoming 1

National 131
 

Underberg and Kessler, a western New York law firm, has been hired to represent people who got sick after eating spinach contaminated with the E. coli bacteria. They are the same firm that represented more than 700 people who got sick last summer from the cryptosporidium parasite after a visit to the Sprayground at Seneca Lake State Park.

Lawyer Paul Nunes says Underberg and Kessler has been retained by Marler Clark of Seattle in the E. coli outbreak. The two firms also worked together on the sprayground case and they represented victims of several large-scale salmonella outbreaks in central New York.

Marler Clark is suing growers and produce companies on behalf of people in Wisconsin, Oregon and Utah who got E. Coli infections after eating bagged fresh spinach. Underberg and Kessler plans to do the same on behalf of New Yorkers who claim injuries from the outbreak.

The New York State Health Department has confirmed seven E. coli cases as part of the current outbreak. Four are in Erie County plus one case each in Schoharie, Schenectady and Chemung Counties. State Health Commissioner Antonia Novello says anyone who has fresh spinach in their fridge should toss it. She says washing won't make it safe.

Usually E. coli causes diarrhea and cramps, but in some cases it can lead to kidney failure and death due to the complication hemolytic uremic syndrome.
 

Federal health officials were uncertain as to whether the bacterial strain that contaminated spinach and infected people coast to coast is unusually virulent, but more than half the reported cases have required hospitalization.

A key unanswered question is whether the strain of E. coli O157:H7 is particularly virulent, reports Newsday writer Delthia Ricks. At this point all data would point in that direction given that 66 people, slightly more than half of the 131 confirmed cases were hospitalized, Acheson said. In a typical outbreak involving E. coli O157:H7, he said, health experts would expect 20 percent to 25 percent of people to be hospitalized. Hospitalizations occur because patients develope hemolytic uremic syndrome, the potentially fatal kidney disorder caused by the bacteria's toxin.

Dr. Ken Lee, director of the Center for Food Safety at Ohio State University, said in an interview Tuesday that "no one should risk dying from eating spinach." Among microbial culprits that routinely attack foods, he said, "E. coli is not the biggest killer in terms of body counts." But it is particularly insidious because it can cause bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome, he added. "We need to do a better job of cleaning up food."

Health investigators are examining practices on nine farms, but the probe could expand. Product recalls could involve other companies, but federal health officials hope spinach growers outside of California will soon be able to market their products.
 

Tainted spinach is not the only source of E. coli to infect local residents in a recent outbreak, reports the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Five of the seven E. coli cases being investigated by the Manitowoc County Health Department may have been caused by exposure to animals at the county fair.

The Food and Drug Administration has linked an outbreak of E. coli that has killed one person and sickened at least 108 others around the country to fresh spinach from Salinas, California-based Natural Selection Foods LLC, the country's largest grower of organic produce. The company has recalled 34 brands of fresh spinach sold at stores around the country.

However, the E. coli infections that sent four Manitowoc County people to the hospital and have been linked to the death of Marion Graff, 77, of Manitowoc may be tied to the Manitowoc County Fair.

Wergin said test results have been returned from the State Lab of Hygiene for five of the six remaining Manitowoc County cases, with the final test result expected later this week. Local investigators have determined that four people in those cases reported attending the fair in late August.

The health department is investigating whether the fair could be a source of the infection.
 

Supermarkets and salad bars throughout the New York metropolitan area stopped selling prepackaged fresh spinach yesterday as New York joined the growing number of states reporting confirmed cases of E.coli infections linked to Popeye's favorite food.

The New York cases are currently all upstate - in Erie, Schoharie, Schenectady and Chemung counties. Nationwide, 20 states reported E.coli cases linked to tainted spinach - with one person dead and 94 sickened.

The D'Agostino supermarket chain is giving refunds to anyone walking in with spinach in any form, whatever the brand and no matter where in the city it had been purchased.

A&P spokesman Richard DeSanta said all stores operated by the food giant, including Waldbaum's, Food Emporium and Food Basics, has pulled not only bagged spinach from its shelves nationwide, but all fresh spinach and all prepared products that had fresh spinach in them.

The Cosi lunch chain also has stopped offering fresh baby spinach in its hand-tossed salads, even though it's not prepackaged.
 

The answer to the central mystery in an ongoing national E. coli scare that has sickened at least 114 people was uncovered during a series of phone surveys conducted from Melissa Plantenga's Lloyd Center office.

Plantenga, a research analyst who tracks food-borne diseases for the Oregon Department of Human Services, had telephoned the five E. coli victims in Oregon to answer a scattershot, 400-question survey.

One of her questions concerned bagged salad.

"I have had very few people ever say yes, they had eaten bagged greens," Plantenga said. "But the demographic of the victims being women and over the age of 20 suggested a produce item."

After logging four similar answers, she went online and researched a possible connection. A picture of the DNA pattern associated with patients she interviewed was sent to the CDC, where it was confirmed that it resembled a similar outbreak in Wisconsin.

With the new information, other states were then able to also pinpoint bagged spinach as the culprit in the E. coli outbreak. As a result, retailers as well as producers of the product pulled it from their shelves to prevent possible more contamination and illnesses.
 

G&G Restaurant Corp, owner of Hamilton's Restaurant in Glenview, Illinois, filed what could be the first in a bumper crop of class-action lawsuits on Monday.

Class-action suits allow numerous plaintiffs with relatively small claims to band together to seek redress.

Unlike other actions filed in the latest outbreak, the lawsuit does not allege physical harm but seeks only compensation for money spent on spinach that had to be discarded.

The suit's defendant is Natural Selection Foods, a San Juan Bautista, California-based company that sells prepackaged spinach under the Earthbound Farm brand. Federal authorities have identified Natural Selection as a possible source of the E. coli outbreak.

In G&G’s case, the amount sought is $40. But with a class-action lawsuit, the total amount for Natural Selection may be significantly larger, depending on how many consumers, restaurants, and retail operations seek reimbursement for purchases.
 

Leafy vegetables are the second leading source of E. coli infections in the United States, behind ground beef, but the government relies primarily on voluntary safety steps by farmers and packagers to prevent outbreaks.

The cleanliness of fresh produce is drawing new attention amid reports that tainted spinach has been found recently in 21 states, killing at least one person and sickening more than 100 others. A second death was under investigation.

The Associated Press reports that some consumer groups believe the government should do more to regulate farming and packaging, including the quality of water used for irrigation, the application of manure and sanitary facilities used by workers.

In recent years, the FDA has acknowledged problems involving the safety of produce, particularly with lettuce and spinach.

Robert Brackett, director of the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Sciences, sent a letter in November to California firms that grow, pack and ship lettuce. He noted that 19 known outbreaks of E. coli have come from fresh-cut lettuce or spinach since 1995.

In March, the agency issued draft guidance for the safe production of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Last month, the agency issued what it called the Lettuce Safety Initiative. It calls for visits to farms and packing operations so staff can monitor potential trouble spots and offer recommendations on reducing food contamination.

But warning letters and guidance are not enough, the consumer groups say. They contend many producers never hear of the recommendations, and that means the level of food safety remains hazardous and deadly.
 

On its way to supermarket shelves, bagged spinach passes from field to packing plant to store, with several opportunities along the journey for it to become contaminated with deadly E. coli bacteria.

This complex chain is making it hard to identify the precise source of the outbreak that has killed one person and sickened at least 113 others around the country, according to the Associated Press.

Food health experts say the germ can be spread a multitude of ways -- by manure, by contaminated irrigation water, by farmhands relieving themselves in the field, by inadequate washing by processors, by insufficient refrigeration that promotes the growth of bacteria in sealed bags of salad greens.

California agricultural regulations require that toilet and handwashing facilities for farmworkers be located within one-quarter mile or a five-minute walk from the work site, with one toilet per 20 employees of each gender. Employers whose workers use fields instead of the bathrooms can face fines of up to several thousand dollars.

In addition, safety measures exist all along the production chain, from chlorinated water to refrigerated trucks for transport.

Yet whatever precautionary measures are in place, industry watchers say you can only do so much to control nature.
 

Shaila Leafty and her young son have joined what is expected to be a growing number of people who are suing a California spinach producer blamed for a national E. coli outbreak. Her son Brayden's illness is just one of an estimated 15 E. coli cases reported in Utah since the spinach-related outbreak was discovered.

While state and federal officials have traced the current outbreak to Salinas, California-based Natural Selection Foods’ fresh spinach, they haven't pinpointed the sources of the bacteria.

"As the grower and producer, Natural Selection Foods should have been consumers' first line of defense against E. coli entering the food supply," says attorney Bill Marler. "Instead, this company allowed contaminated produce to enter the marketplace and caused one of the largest fresh-produce-related outbreaks in recent history."

Marler is also representing the parents of two Wisconsin children who were also believed to have been sickened by contaminated spinach. According to the Wisconsin lawsuit, both children came down with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a potentially deadly condition associated with E. coli infections. As of last Sunday, the daughter remained hospitalized.

An Oregon woman has also sued. According to her lawsuit, she ate spinach for lunch several times during the week of Aug. 21. She reports she was hospitalized at Salem Hospital for six days and required at least four blood transfusions and other medical procedures.

In all of the federal lawsuits, the plaintiffs have asked for unspecified damages, including compensation for pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, medical expenses, travel expenses, emotional distress and attorney fees.
 

Arizona resident Emily Gruenberger, 9, was diagnosed with E. coli poisoning. It's not yet determined if she is among over 100 people nationally who have gotten sick from eating raw spinach.

Twenty-one states, including all of Arizona’s neighbors, have reported outbreaks, according to FOX11 News.

Pima County has four E. coli victims right now, two of which were caused by eating raw meat. The other two cases need more tests to determine their source of the bacteria.

Pima County’s Health Department Spokesman Patty Woodcock says it would be ironic if the E. coli came from spinach.

“You know we have been trying so hard to get people to eat healthy,” Woodcock said. “In a time when we’re fighting obesity, it’s a growing national concern; salads are a great way to lose weight.”

Consumers should avoid all fresh spinach, regardless of whether it is pre-packaged, a chief U.S. food safety official warned on Saturday, saying the number of E. coli illnesses had passed 100.

Reuters reports that while the FDA did not expand the warning beyond fresh spinach, the investigation into the cause of the illnesses was continuing and other possible sources had not been excluded.

Investigators believe that the spinach was contaminated before it was bagged since more than one bag contained contaminated product, said Dr. David Acheson, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's director of food safety and security.

Since August 2, one person has died and 102 people have fallen ill, including 16 who suffered kidney failure after eating spinach suspected of being contaminated with the E. coli 0157:H7 -- a potentially deadly bacterium that causes bloody diarrhea and dehydration.

On Friday, Natural Selection Foods LLC/Earthbound Farm, the nation's largest grower of organic produce, voluntarily recalled fresh spinach products sold in the United States, Mexico and Canada after the U.S. government said they could be linked to the worsening outbreak.
 

Anne Grintjes told the Madison, Wisconsin-based The Capital Times that her 6-year-old son is in the hospital with E. coli-related complications and her daughter is now complaining of stomach cramps, a symptom her son had before being diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to serious kidney damage, failure, and death.

Wisconsin has been hit the hardest in the outbreak, linked to fresh spinach. E. coli has been blamed for the death of a 77-year-old Manitowoc woman.

On Saturday, health officials said two additional cases had been confirmed in the state, bringing the state total to 32. At least 109 people in 19 states have been sickened by the bacteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
 

The outbreak of illness last week due to bacterial contamination of bagged spinach is one of the larger episodes of its kind, with at least 94 victims, including one death, in 20 states.

But the outbreak, which health authorities linked to spinach sold by a company in the Salinas Valley in California, is not an isolated one, says New York Times writer Henry Fountain. In the past decade there have been eight others tied to E. coli contamination of fresh greens from the valley, where most of the nation’s lettuce and spinach is grown.

Fountain asked Dean Cliver, a professor of food safety at the University of California at Davis, why these outbreaks keep occuring. Cliver said that no one, including the FDA, had been able to pinpoint sources of bacterial contamination.

The most likely source, he said, is irrigation and processing water that has been contaminated by animal waste. But poor sanitation for field workers and use of compost containing manure are other possibilities.

Dr. Cliver said greens are a quick crop, and fields are turned and replanted long before an outbreak occurs. Even if the contamination could be traced to a particular field, determining the source of the water can be difficult.
 

Over the weekend, federal health officials expanded their initial warning not to eat bagged spinach to include any fresh, raw spinach. As of late Saturday, the CDC reported 102 cases of E. coli exposure in 19 states, including one death in Wisconsin.

This latest incident, taken with earlier reports of E. coli contamination in greens, exposes a glaring weakness, experts say, and that effective health standards and cleanliness enforcement should be dependent on the farm itself. Currently, FDA enforcement authority begins in the packaging facilities where produce is washed and packaged for transport.

Consumer watchdogs hope the more-frequent appearance of E. coli in leafy vegetables will finally cause Congress to expand the reach of the Federal Drug Administration to farms.

Scientists say E. coli bacteria live in the intestines of cattle and other animals and are passed to plants through contact with fecal matter. Produce could become contaminated several ways: manure used for fertilizer, fecal runoff into streams that are used for farm irrigation, or even droppings from birds that had swallowed manure. As a result, many observers say that stricter FDA oversight is needed at sites where produce is grown.
 

A press release issued by MSU proposes the idea that bagged pre-washed salads may be a game of chance, there the odds are not in the consumer's favor.

Prewashed packaged vegetables, like the spinach that is the focus of the recent outbreak of E. coli, always have been viewed with suspicion from experts in foodborne illness because it's a packaging system that inherently increases the risk of spreading germs.

Thomas Whittam, Michigan State University Hannah Distinguished Professor of microbial evolution, says that the combination of E. coli's durability and power with a mixture of produce creates the potential for a veritable “stew” of food poisoning.

"When a contaminated plant gets mixed in with hundreds of other plants and packaged together, and when it takes very few bacteria to get sick, that really increases the risks," Whittam said. "With washing you can remove 99.99 percent of the bacteria, but the few that make it through don't get killed by normal defenses in the stomach. Basically, you're assuming a lot of risk."
 

The FDA has posted the following information pertaining to the current E. coli O157:H7 outbreak on their website:

Case Reports
To date, 102 cases of illness due to E. coli infection have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including 16 cases of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) and one death. Illnesses continue to be reported to CDC. This is considered to be an ongoing investigation.

Symptoms of E. coli O157:H7 Illness
E. coli O157:H7 causes diarrhea, often with bloody stools. Although most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, some people can develop a form of kidney failure called HUS. HUS is most likely to occur in young children and the elderly. The condition can lead to serious kidney damage and even death.

States Affected
There are 19 confirmed states (versus 20 reported yesterday). The case originally attributed to Tennessee was, in fact, in Kentucky. States reporting illnesses include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Consumer Advice
FDA advises consumers to not eat fresh spinach or fresh spinach-containing products until further notice. If individuals believe they may have experienced symptoms of illness after consuming fresh spinach or fresh spinach-containing products, FDA recommends that they seek medical advice.

Recalls
Natural Selection Foods, LLC, of San Juan Bautista, California, is recalling all of its products containing spinach in all brands they pack with "Best if Used by Dates" of August 17, 2006 through October 1, 2006. These products include spinach and any salad with spinach in a blend, both retail and food service products. Products that do not contain spinach are not part of this recall.

Natural Selection Foods, LLC brands include: Natural Selection Foods, Pride of San Juan, Earthbound Farm, Bellissima, Dole, Rave Spinach, Emeril, Sysco, O Organic, Fresh Point, River Ranch, Superior, Nature's Basket, Pro-Mark, Compliments, Trader Joe's, Ready Pac, Jansal Valley, Cheney Brothers, Coastline, D'Arrigo Brothers, Green Harvest, Mann, Mills Family Farm, Premium Fresh, Snoboy, The Farmer's Market, Tanimura & Antle, President's Choice, Cross Valley, and Riverside Farms.

The affected products were also distributed to Canada and Mexico. FDA continues to investigate whether other companies and brands are involved.
 

Nebraska health officials have confirmed the state's first case of E. coli linked to spinach.

Nebraska will also be reinvestigating 17 other known cases of E. coli that have occurred in the state since August. In each of those cases, local health authorities will ask people whether they had eaten fresh, store-bought spinach within 10 days before becoming ill. The state also will reanalyze specimens taken at the time of those illnesses.

Nebraska's confirmed case brings to 20 the number of states where the particular strain of E. coli has been verified. On Saturday, the CDC released a report saying that the illness has been confirmed in 102 people in 19 states, with the worst outbreak occurring in Wisconsin. Nationwide, more than half of those who became ill have required hospitalization, and 16 percent have suffered kidney failure. One death has been confirmed.

Nebraska typically records 50 to 75 instances of E. coli annually. In most instances, no connection between the cases is found.
 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control activated a "war room" of health experts at its Atlanta headquarters Saturday to deal with a nationwide outbreak of the E.coli bacteria on leafy fresh spinach that has killed at least one person, sickened more than 100 and caused restaurants and groceries across the nation to pull the vegetable from shelves and menu choices, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Fresh spinach products from Natural Selection Foods / Earthbound Farm in San Juan Bautista, Calif., have been linked to a widespread outbreak of illness from E. coli bacteria.

The outbreak has hit 19 states, with 102 cases, of which 52 were hospitalized, and 16 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure. Children with HUS have a higher death rate than adults, about 5 percent. It's likely that more than 200 people have been sickened nationwide.

Natural Selection is known for its Earthbound Farm brand, which claims to have pioneered the retail market in pre-washed, bagged salads in 1986. It says its spinach and other products are in 74 percent of U.S. grocery stores. Other companies' products could be implicated, the FDA said.
 

With their 6-year-old son already hospitalized with E. coli-related complications, a Brookfield couple wonders if their 3-year-old daughter might also be among those sickened in a nationwide outbreak of the bacteria linked to tainted spinach.

Anne Grintjes said that her daughter is now complaining of stomach cramps, a symptom her son had before being hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome. The syndrome is a potentially fatal E. coli complication that can lead to serious kidney damage.

On Friday, California-based Natural Selection Foods voluntarily recalled its pre-packaged spinach and salad mixes containing spinach. Federal officials said that although they have not isolated any E. coli bacteria from spinach packed by the company, many patients have reported eating the company's products.

Bill Marler of the Seattle-based law firm Marler Clark said that his firm will update suits filed against Dole Food Co. in Wisconsin and Oregon to include Natural Selection Foods.

Among Marler's clients are Anna and Paul Zientek, a Milwaukee couple whose 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter developed E. coli-related syndrome after eating salads made from a package of Dole baby spinach they purchased on Aug. 25. Although the 6-year-old boy was released from Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa on Thursday, his sister remains hospitalized.
 

Washington state health officials said today the outbreak of E. coli had sickened a woman from Longview, who was tested in Oregon. Officials were still investigating and could not say today whether the spinach was purchased in Washington, said Deanna Mill, spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Health.

Federal health officials worked today to find the source of a multistate E. coli outbreak and warned consumers that even washing the suspect spinach won't kill the sometimes-deadly bacteria.

The death occurred in Wisconsin, where 20 people were reported ill, 11 of them in Milwaukee. The outbreak has sickened others — 10 of them seriously — in Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon and Utah. In California and Washington, health officials were investigating a single case in each of the two states.

 

Four people in Idaho and Washington have been sickened in a multistate outbreak of E. coli that killed one person in Wisconsin. In Idaho, three people were sickened, but only one was hospitalized.

Idaho health officials have asked all grocery stores to voluntarily remove fresh bagged spinach from their produce shelves.

In addition to the death in Wisconsin, 20 people were reported ill in that state, 11 of them in Milwaukee. Besides Washington and Idaho, victims have been identified in Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, and Utah.
 

One person has died, and dozens of others were sickened, in the 10-state E. coli outbreak, linked by Food and Drug Administration officials to bagged spinach. The FDA has warned people not to eat bagged spinach and said washing it wouldn't solve the problem because the bacteria is too tightly attached.

"If you wash it, it is not going to get rid of it," said Robert Brackett, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition.

The warning applied to consumers nationwide because of uncertainty over the origin of the tainted spinach and how widely it was distributed. Health officials did not know of any link to a specific growing region, grower, brand or supplier.

Officials believe the spinach may have been grown in California, and federal and state health officials were there trying to pinpoint the source of the contamination. Most of the spinach crop at this time of the year comes from California. A special effort is under way in the Salinas Valley of California, a major leafy-vegetable growing region.
 

Of 57 confirmed cases nationally, at least 20 have occurred in Wisconsin, including one death, state and federal officials said. Wisconsin was the first state to identify the particular strain of E. coli involved.

Besides the Wisconsin cases, the outbreak has sickened people in Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Washington, according to federal health officials.

Preliminary analysis suggests the same bug is responsible for the outbreak in all the states.

Some grocery store managers are clearing shelves of pre-washed packaged spinach, although there has been no official recall. Many grocers around the state have already responded to the FDA's outbreak announcement by working to voluntarily remove products from their shelves and keep their customers informed on the reported E. coli outbreak. Other bagged vegetables, including prepackaged salads, apparently are not affected.

Health officials do not know of any link to a specific growing region, grower, brand or supplier at present.
 

The Pennsylvania State Health Department have just announced a case of E. coli in Pennsylvania, with a potential link to the nationwide alert about contaminated spinach.

Officials tell CBS 3 that the link falls into the same critical time-frame of the last week of August. During that time, the victim may have eaten fresh spinach sold packaged in a bag.

Health officials will not confirm where in Pennsylvania this happened, only that the person is recovering. In the meantime, they are warning consumers not to eat fresh bagged spinach and advise them to throw out any of the suspected produce that may be in their homes.
 

Roundy's Supermarkets is voluntarily removing all pre-packaged fresh spinach from its grocery store shelves, according to the Associated Press.

Roundy's stores include Pick 'n Save, Copps and the Metro Market in Wisconsin. Roundy's also is taking the spinach out of the Rainbow stores in Minnesota, even though Minnesota isn't one of the eight states identified by federal health officials.

Health officials are investigating a multistate E. coli outbreak linked to the spinach. The disease has caused one death in Wisconsin and sickened 49 others in eight states.

Twenty cases of the bacterial disease have been confirmed in Wisconsin. State health officials say in all 20 cases, the same strand of E. coli is involved, indicating the source is the same and likely from prewashed, bagged spinach.
 

According to Health Officials, raw packages of spinach is likely the sources of an E. coli outbreak, killing at least one person and made at least 49 other people sick. Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, and California have all made reports and are investigating a possible case.

A warning has been issued by officials, until they identify the source of the spinach's distribution, says Priscilla Rodreguez of KNX 1070 NewsRadiol

Amy Philpott of the United Fresh Produce Association says her industry is, ''very concerned'' and taking the outbreak ''very seriously.''

Officials say most healthy adults can recover within a week. Some people, mainly the very young and old, can develop hemmolytic uremic syndrome, a form of kidney failure that often leads to death.
 

E. coli Is:

• A form of bacteria that commonly lives in the human body.
• One strain releases a toxin that can cause severe illness.
• The germ is present in uncooked beef, unpasteurized milk and juice, and on raw sprouts and lettuce.
   

Symptoms Include:

• Abdominal cramps.
• Severe, often bloody, diarrhea.
• Kidney failure in the young, elderly or people with weak immune systems.
   

If You Have An E. Coli Infection:

• You don't need to take antibiotics.
• It will probably go away in five to 10 days.
• Young children and the elderly could be hospitalized to treat kidney failure.
   

Every Year In The U.S.:

• Approximately 73,000 people contract E. coli.
• Approximately 61 people die from the infection.
   

Ways to prevent contracting E. coli:

• Wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly.
• Cook all ground beef and meat.
• Drink only pasteurized milk and juice.
• Don't swallow water in lakes or public pools.
   

If You Get E. Coli, Try To Avoid Infecting Others:

• Don't prepare food for others.
• Bathe alone.
• Don't swim in public places.
   

Utah is one of eight states experiencing unusually high numbers of E. coli cases, and at least some of the outbreaks appear to be linked to "pre-washed" spinach, according to state health officials and the Food and Drug Administration. Statewide, 10 cases are being investigated so far.

The investigation indicates at least some of the E. coli cases appear to be strongly associated with ready-to-eat packaged spinach. The link is strong enough that FDA officials first said people should cook bagged spinach thoroughly, but later changed their warning to telling consumers not to eat it at all "at this time."

E. coli outbreaks that may be linked to the prepackaged spinach are in Utah, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Michigan, Idaho, Indiana and Connecticut.

To avoid E. coli, the FDA said that all bagged spinach must at the very least be thoroughly cooked. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said that, of 225 food-poisoning outbreaks from 1990 to 1998, nearly 20 percent were linked to fresh fruits, vegetables or salads.
 

Right on the heels of the nationwide E. coli outbreak stemming from tainted lettuce, the US FDA has announced a nationwide warning to consumers against consuming spinach for the same reasons.

Douglas Powell and Ben Chapman of the Food Safety Network say that despite the fact that fruits and vegetables are good for us, they are one of, if not the most, significant source of foodborne illness today in North America, with an estimated 76 million illness and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each and every year from foodborne illness.

The U.S. lettuce/leafy greens industry took the first step in doing this, releasing a comprehensive set of food safety guidelines, from the farm through to retail, in April, 2006.

Powell and Chapman state that any grower can clean up for a once-a-year audit by inspectors. They are urging growers to maintain the standards for the rest of the year as well.
 

Federal health officials are warning people not to eat bagged fresh spinach after an outbreak of E. coli in eight states has left at least one person dead and 50 others sick.

The death occurred in Wisconsin. The cases of people getting sick were reported in Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah.

FDA officials say they do not know the source of the outbreak, other than it appears to be linked to bagged spinach. Epidemiologists in the Oregon Department of Human Services and in Wisconsin have traced the illness to packaged, washed spinach, although they so far have been unable to identify whether the contamination is confined to a single brand.

ODHS has notified the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is working with the affected states, and the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Public health officials cite these as primary protections against E. coli O157 infection:
 

• Thoroughly cook ground beef and hamburger.
• Keep raw meat separate from ready-to-eat foods.
• Wash hands, counters and utensils with hot soapy water after exposure to raw meat.
• Drink only pasteurized milk, juice or cider.
• Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly, especially those that will not be cooked.
• Always wash hands after using the toilet.
   

The Milwaukee Health Department is searching for the source of E. coli bacteria that has sickened at least 11 Milwaukee County residents.

Those infected by the bacteria E. coli O157:H7 include eight children. Five required hospitalization at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Of the five, two were treated and released while three remain hospitalized, said hospital spokeswoman Erica Halbleib.

Health officials say the cases don't rise to the level of an outbreak and that no additional cases have been reported to them since Monday.

The bacteria can be found in meat, sprouts, watermelon, lettuce, unpasteurized milk and juice, as well as contaminated water. It can also be contracted by petting farm animals.
 

E. coli bacteria were discovered in the human colon in 1885 by German bacteriologist Theodor Escherich. Dr. Escherich also showed that certain strains of the bacteria were responsible for infant diarrhea and gastroenteritis - an important public health discovery.

E. coli O157:H7 is one of hundreds of strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli. The combination of letters and numbers in the name of E. coli O157:H7 refers to the specific markers found on the bacterium’s surface; these letters and numbers distinguish the dangerous O157:H7 variety from other types of E. coli.

The virulence of E. coli O157:H7 is a result of its ability to produce Shiga-like toxins, or verotoxins. Shiga-like toxins inhibit protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells and play a role in hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome by causing damage to endothelial cells in the kidneys, pancreas, brain, and other organs, thus inhibiting those organs’ ability to function.
 

Seven cases of E. coli infections are being investigated by the Manitowoc County Health Department.

The department is waiting for test results from a state lab to determine the source of the infections, said Amy Wergin to the Manitowoc Herald Times-Reporter. Wergin is the county public health nurse manager.

"We are interviewing people and asking them where they have been and what they gave been in contact with to find similarities," she said. "If there is a common cause we may be able to abate that hazard."

"We're concerned because this is a much higher rate of infection than normal and there might have been a common cause for infections," Wergin said.

The cases were referred to the health department from the patient's health care providers.
 

Farms in the Salinas Valley are being evaluated to determine why leafy greens grown in the area, often called the "Salad Bowl of the World" are linked with E. coli.

Officials say lettuce and spinach grown in that area  has been identified in eight of 19 outbreaks of the virulent E. coli O157:H7 strain since 1995. The outbreaks have sickened at least 217 people in nationwide, including two who died in 2003.

Much of the nation's lettuce is grown in the valley and growers fear continuing infections might erode confidence in their $2 billion annual lettuce crop.

Inspectors told the Los Angeles Times that the evaluation started last month and will continue through the fall.

 

A cluster of E. coli infections have been reported locally in the past week, Manitowoc County Health Officer James Blaha told the Herald Times-Reporter.

The source of the infections has yet to be determined, Blaha said. He said there has been an increase in reported E. coli cases statewide.

E. coli is a bacteria that causes severe abdominal cramping and diarrhea, which is often bloody. There is generally little or no fever associated with the illness. Infection is acquired by ingesting contaminated food or water, or by coming in contact with fecal material from infected people or animals. Blaha urges seeking medical attention if infected.

He said E. coli infections can be prevented by avoiding consumption of raw or undercooked beef, or drinking unpasteurized milk. Most importantly, people should wash their hands before preparing or eating food, after using the bathroom or after having contact with cattle.
 

Some of New York state's apple cider producers still don't have equipment to treat their product to prevent E. coli contamination.

The state Legislature a few months ago granted an extension of a deadline requiring cider be pasteurized or treated with ultraviolet light.

Initially, all cider sold in the state was to be treated started last January. Now, the mandatory requirement won't take effect until next January first. Peter Gregg, a spokesman for the New York Apple Association, says only a handful of state cider producers aren't treating their product. The equipment needed to properly treat cider can cost 15-thousand dollars or more -- an expensive proposition for some smaller cider makers.

More than 200 people became ill in 2004 after they drank unpasteurized cider from a northern New York producer.
 

Health inspectors have closed the doors of George's Burgers and Subs on Henderson Highway after it failed to comply with health orders made in the wake of the city's outbreak of E. coli. The burger joint is one of four restaurants in the city connected to the outbreak, which has made 40 people sick since June, including 14 who required hospitalization.

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority medical officer Dr. Pierre Plourde said three of the restaurants - Mrs. Mike's, V.J.'s Drive-In and the Dairi-Wip Drive-In - had responded to inspectors’ orders when a spot check for compliance was done 24 to 48 hours later. However, the Henderson Highway George’s outlet had not and was closed late Friday, Plourde said.

At least two people remain in hospital with the illness, which causes severe stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea and in extreme cases can cause kidney failure.

The WRHA encourages people to be careful preparing their food, and about the cleanliness of the establishments where they eat. While 60 percent of the E. coli cases diagnosed in August have been traced to meat sold by the Dutch Meat Market, there are 40 per cent of the cases which are as yet unsourced.

The Dutch Meat Market was cleared of any wrongdoing in the outbreak and officials are now looking for the rendering plant and farm where the beef originated.
 

A 2-year old girl is now dead, and health department officials said she tested posted for E. coli bacteria, reports WTOV9's Amy Post.

Officials at the Guernsey County Health Department said four family members from Cambridge all were ill with the bacteria. They said people should not be overly concerned about the bacteria, because it seems to be an isolated family event rather than an area epidemic.

Officials are investigating where the bacteria came from, but they do not have a conclusive result.

The three other family members who tested positive are now recovering at home.
 

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority announced Friday that more than half of the 40 E. coli cases in the region in August had been traced back to the Dutch Meat Market in St. Boniface. The Winnipeg butcher shop is considering legal action against the farm or slaughterhouse that supplied it with contaminated meat.

"They'd have to first of all see if they have suffered any damages. And then if they have, they could consider recourse against the entity that was responsible for the problem, no question,” said attorney Grant Stefanson.

Dutch Meat Market distributed ground beef to several local restaurants and burger joints in the first two weeks of August. Meat was also sold to food retail outlets and individual customers. Four people are currently in hospital, with two in critical condition, and 14 people have had to be hospitalized since June.

The process of making ground beef is inherently risky because one piece of contaminated meat can contaminate the whole lot, said Dr. Pierre Plourde, the WRHA's medical officer.

The restaurants in question have since been inspected and measures were taken to improve safe food handling, but Plourde said ongoing monitoring will continue.
 

Winnipeg health authorities said that meat contaminated with E. coli had been traced to the Dutch Meat Market in St. Boniface, where restaurants purchased meat.

While the Dutch Meat Market and several burger restaurants that purchased their meat from the butcher have now been given a clean bill of health from authorities, George's Burgers and Subs did not pass a second inspection. George's Burgers and Subs on Henderson Highway in Winnipeg has been closed as a result.

A lawyer for the Dutch Meat Market said Monday the business is considering legal action against the farm or slaughterhouse that supplied it with the contaminated meat.

Health officials are still trying to track down the original source of the meat, said Dr. Pierre Plourde, medical officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, on Tuesday.

More than 35 people have contacted health authorities with samples of meat they bought at Dutch Meat Market in the first two weeks of August, which will be tested in an effort to track down the original source.

The August outbreak raised the total number of E. coli infections this summer to 57. In all, there were 65 cases so far this year. Last year, the WRHA recorded only 13 cases of E. coli infection, and 25 cases in 2004.