E Coli Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark Law Firm : E. coli Blog

As of 1 PM (ET) September 28, 2006, Thursday, 187 persons infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 have been reported to CDC from 26 states.

Among the ill persons, 97 (52%) were hospitalized, 29 (16%) developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), and an adult in Wisconsin died. One hundred thirty-four (72%) were female and 18 (10%) were children under 5 years old. The proportion of persons who developed HUS was 29% in children (<18 years old), 7% in persons 18 to 59 years old, and 14% in persons 60 years old or older. Among ill persons who provided the date when their illnesses began, 82% became ill between August 19 and September 5. The peak time when illnesses began was August 30 to September 1 -- 32% of persons with the outbreak strain became ill on one of those 3 days.

View enlarged map to see the number of persons reported with the outbreak strain from each state
Two deaths among suspect cases have been reported. Suspect cases are not known to have been infected with the outbreak strain, so are not included in the confirmed case count. Idaho is investigating a suspect case in a 2-year-old child with HUS who died on September 20 and reportedly had recently consumed fresh spinach. E. coli O157 has not been detected in the child. Maryland is investigating a suspect case in an elderly woman who died on September 13 and had recently consumed fresh spinach. E. coli O157 was cultured from her stool, but “DNA fingerprinting” to determine whether it is the outbreak strain has not been possible.

E. coli O157 was isolated from 9 packages of spinach supplied by patients living in 7 states. All packages were marketed as baby spinach and labeled with the same brand name. The “DNA fingerprints” ofall 9 of these E. coli match that of the outbreak strain.

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CONSEQUENCE - 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.

To read the full article click here.

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We were pleased that Michael Heilman, Ms Kaminske's counsel, has asked Marler Clark to assist in prosecuting this case.  Mike is a great lawyer and advocate for his clients.

GRAND RAPIDS (AP) — A southeastern Michigan woman who says she became violently ill and was hospitalized after eating E. coli-tainted packaged spinach is suing retailer Meijer Inc. and supplier Dole Food Co. Inc.

Susan Kaminske’s lawsuit was filed in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit and seeks damages of more than $25,000.

At least 189 people nationwide have become sick after eating spinach tainted by the same virulent strain of E. coli bacteria. The federal investigation to find the source is focused on Natural Selection Foods LLC, which packaged spinach for Dole and dozens of other brands.

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Too soon to link his fatal illness to tainted spinach

By Rebecca Boone
Associated Press

      POCATELLO — 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, a health department official said Friday.

      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.

To read the full article click here.

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By Warren King

Seattle Times medical reporter

Two children have been sickened in another episode of E. coli infection, this time from drinking raw milk from a Whatcom County dairy.

A 5-year-old boy from Issaquah was still hospitalized with the illness Thursday, while an 8-year-old girl from Snohomish County was recovering at home, said state health officials and a spokeswoman for a store that sold the milk.

The unpasteurized milk came from Grace Harbor Farms, a small dairy in Custer, north of Bellingham. It is sold by PCC Natural Markets and Whole Food Markets.

The FSnet summary can be found here.

The original article can be found here.

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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 when 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."

Spinach linked to E. coli outbreak was not organic, health officials say
September 29, 2006
LA Times
Deborah Schoch and Mary Engel
 
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.

The nine bags were packaged by Natural Selection Foods at the same
facility in San Juan Bautista on Aug. 15, officials said.

For more information click here.

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Well done piece by the LA Times on how HUS can have impacts on familes for a very long time.  I had the honor to work for all the familes in this story.

September 24, 2006
LA Times
Mary Engel

When she was 10 years old, Brianne Kiner became the public face of one
of the country's worst outbreaks of food poisoning.

Television cameras zoomed in as she left Seattle's Children's Hospital
in June 1993, six months after eating an undercooked Jack-in-the-Box
hamburger contaminated by E. coli. It was the same virulent strain
that recently has been linked to California-grown spinach.

Doctors called her survival a miracle. What most people outside her
family didn't know then — and may not realize now — was that her
recovery was just beginning.

To read the full article click here.

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September 27, 2006
The Monterey County Herald (CA)
Dania Akkad

He's losing money every day.

He's wondered whether his company can stay in business.

And now, two weeks into a broad consumer warning against eating fresh spinach, spinach grower and processor Andrew Cumming is also dealing with angry phone calls from spinach producers on the other side of the country.

"We got a phone call from a grower in Pennsylvania," said Cumming, chief executive officer of King City-based Metz Fresh, on Tuesday. "He was just screaming at our salesman, saying that 'You guys out there. Look what you've done to our industry.'"

The grower slammed the phone down, only to call back later to rant some more. Cumming shakes it off.

"I can understand his frustration," Cumming said. "I feel the same way."

Just like the Pennsylvania grower, Cumming's spinach business came to a slamming halt when the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers against eating all fresh spinach.

Now some producers with spinach from outside of San Benito, Santa Clara and Monterey counties -- still implicated in the FDA investigation -- are in the process of putting stickers on their bags or otherwise looking for ways to let consumers know where the spinach is grown -- or not grown.

"The whole point is to tell you it's not from California," said Bruce Taylor, CEO and chairman of Salinas-based Taylor Farms, who said the labeling process would only darken the local industry's black eye in the marketplace.

Cumming and Taylor said putting stickers on spinach is not a solution that will benefit their companies, neither of which have been implicated by investigators.

Nor is it a solution, they said, to get spinach back in the market and start rebuilding consumer confidence.

"The reality is there is not much spinach being sold today because consumers are still confused," Taylor said.

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September 27, 2006
Sacramento Bee (CA)
Dorsey Griffith

The company at the center of the E. coli outbreak has stopped operations at a plant where it processed spinach traced to several cases, state health officials said Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, eight more cases of E. coli linked to tainted spinach were confirmed by federal health officials.

To read more, click here.

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September 27, 2006
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY)
Lauren Stanforth

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.

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 Aug. 21.

The complaint says McCoy, who is in her 60s, ate a number of spinach salads in late August, and on Aug. 31 began experiencing abdominal cramps and diarrhea. McCoy alleges her symptoms worsened to bloody diarrhea and on Sept. 3 she went to Highland Hospital, where she received intravenous fluids and had diagnostic tests done. She left the hospital later that evening. Nunes said McCoy continues to recover from her infection.

To read the FSnet summary click here.

To read the full article click here.

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September 27, 2006
New York Times
Marian Burros

THE latest outbreak of food-borne illness, traced to a virulent bacterium in bagged spinach, is being called a watershed moment for American industrial agriculture, a time of reckoning for industry and government and the public.

Critics say the factory farming system needs an overhaul, with produce farmers and processors being subject to the same sorts of mandatory rules as the meat industry to protect against E. coli O157:H7 and other harmful bacteria. More outbreaks of disease are now traced to produce than to meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk combined.

To read the full article click here.

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September 26, 2006
WDEF - Chattanooga,TN
Rebecca Cruz

Here's the history...

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.

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.

Casey Poole, Hamilton County Health Department 13:09:24 "sirloin steak was implicated because seven of the eight cases had eaten sirloin steak at Ryan's."

Continue reading this article at the WDEF Web site.

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September 26, 2006
Reuters
Maggie Fox

WASHINGTON  - More bags of spinach tainted with toxic E. coli bacteria have been found and could help investigators track down an outbreak that may have killed three people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

Investigators found the bags in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Ohio. The CDC said the DNA "fingerprint" of the strain isolated in Pennsylvania matches that of the outbreak strain.

"'DNA fingerprinting' is underway on the strains isolated in Illinois and Ohio," the CDC said in a statement.

It said 183 people in 26 states had been confirmed with E. coli O157:H7 infections in the outbreak.

The Toronto Star newspaper said a woman in Canada's Ontario province had also been infected.

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26.sept.06
FDA
 
To date, 183 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), 95
hospitalizations and one death.

To read the full statement, click here.

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She didn't develop complications the disease can bring

26.sep.06
Statesman Journal

A second case of E. coli poisoning in the widespread outbreak blamed on fresh spinach has been confirmed in Marion County, the Oregon Public Health Division said Monday.

An 11-year-old girl was confirmed late Friday as having illness caused by E. coli O157:H7 infection. She was not hospitalized and did not develop complications associated with hemolytic uremic syndrome, health division spokeswoman Melissa Plantenga said.

The case was confirmed by the Oregon Public Health Division and reported Saturday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Plantenga said.

The girl is the sixth confirmed case in Oregon.

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September 26, 2006
Washington Post
Dan Morse

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 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.

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KDKA-2, CBS Broadcasting Inc.
Associated Press

HARRISBURG A bag of Dole-brand baby spinach bought in western Pennsylvania
is the third one in the nation tied to a deadly E. coli strain, Pennsylvania health officials said Tuesday.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health positively identified a sample of
fresh bagged spinach that contains the strain of E. coli involved in the
national outbreak.

Pennsylvania is the third state to find this strain of E. coli in a sample
of fresh bagged spinach.

The full article can be found in the fsnet archives here.

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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. 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. You can listen to the full conference call from now through October 5th at 888-566-0619.

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The fact that bags of spinach are testing postive, should help the investigators narrow the search to even more narrow areas where the spinach may have been contaminated by this deadly bacteria.  However, in the unlikely event that a grower is identified, it does still not absolve DOLE and Natural Selections of the duty to provide a safe product to consumers.

To read the FSnet summary, click here.

LISA LEFF
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - 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 said 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, said Dr. Kevin Reilly, deputy director of prevention services for the California Department of Health Services.

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

Reilly said it was 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, he added.

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Posted: 26-Sep-2006
         
A Canadian woman was recently hospitalized after eating spinach from the United States tainted with E. coli bacteria, a food inspection agency spokesman said.

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.

"We've found a case of E. coli from the United States and someone has become sick from it here," Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) spokesman Marc Richard told AFP. "It's been confirmed through DNA testing."

"The Ontario woman first experienced symptoms in early September which means the spinach was probably eaten in late August," he said. "She has since been released from hospital."

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.

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."

"The affected products may have been imported into Canada and distributed nationally," the agency said, adding that it will be working with importers "to remove all of the affected product from the marketplace."

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Bag of Spinach in Utah Tests Positive for E. Coli
September 23rd, 2006 @ 9:32pm
Sandra Yi Reporting

A bag of spinach bought here in Utah in August has tested positive for E. coli. It's the second bag in the country to test positive for the strain of E. coli associated with the national outbreak.

Meantime, the number of sick people linked to bad spinach keeps going up. In Utah, 17 people have gotten sick from E. coli. Now a bag of spinach one of them bought has tested positive for the bacteria.

Bad spinach is now being blamed for 171 illnesses in 25 states. So far, more than half of the sick people have been hospitalized, including a Wisconsin woman who died.

The death of 2-year old Kyle Allgood of Idaho may also be related, although preliminary test results were inconclusive.

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By ANDREW SCHOTZ
andrews@herald-mail.com

Warren and Corinne Swartz of Hagerstown weren’t ready for a media throng after word got out about the death of Corinne’s mother, June E. Dunning, from E. coli, possibly due to tainted spinach.
After a story ran Friday in The Morning Herald and The Daily Mail, reporters and television satellite trucks waited outside the Swartzes’ house on The Terrace. The couple received many interview requests.

After a day to themselves, the Swartzes invited media into their home on Saturday to share memories of Dunning, and retell the days before she died Sept. 13 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’s 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.

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Well written article about E. coli's entry to the world stage and our food supply.

Mass-processed foods more easily contaminated
Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, September 23, 2006

In the spring and summer of 1982, McDonald's held a special promotion -- two burgers for the price of one -- that led to the first reported outbreak of a food-borne bacterial infection that now sweeps the nation with some regularity.

That year, at least 47 people in Oregon and Michigan, most of whom took advantage of the promotion, fell ill with severe abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea. Doctors and public health investigators were spooked -- they'd never seen anything like it.

A year later, after months of investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, investigators were able to identify the infection. It was a common bacterium, one that microbiologists had long known to live in human intestinal tracts with mostly harmless, and sometimes even helpful, results.

The bacterium was E. coli, but this was a rare strain that had mutated. It had attached itself to a virus, and that virus made people very sick. Today, that same strain, called 0157:H7, sickens hundreds if not thousands of Americans every year, and is the source of the latest epidemic linked to bagged fresh spinach that has sickened 166 people so far, one of whom died

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Of the 166 cases of E Coli poisoning reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 88 (53%) were hospitalized and 27 (16%) 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 (HUS). 90% of people who became ill did so between August 19 - September 5.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today

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The full release can be found in the fsnet archives here.

Update

To date, 171 cases of illness due to E. coli O157:H7 infection have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including 27 cases of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), 92 hospitalizations and one death.  To date, 25 states have reported cases of E. coli O157:H7 infection.

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Below is a series of two articles that help understand how the CDC, FDA, Oregon and Wisconsin State Departments of Health (and others) helped crack this case.  The articles appeared in the Oregonian and the Tribune

Continue Reading...

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The full statement is available in the fsnet archives.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FDA STATEMENT
September 22, 2006

Media Inquiries: 301-827-6242
Julie Zawisza
julie.zawisza@fda.hhs.gov
Susan Bro
susan.bro@fda.hhs.gov
Consumer Inquiries:
888-INFO-FDA

FDA Statement on Foodborne E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak in Spinach

This statement is current as of September 22, 2006. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will continue to provide the public with regular updates on the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak each day until further notice.

Update

To date, 166 cases of illness due to E. coli O167:H7 infection have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including 27 cases of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), 88 hospitalizations and one death.

To date, 25 states have reported cases of E. coli O157:H7 infection. The additional states as of today are Maryland and Tennessee.

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September 22, 2006
The Gazette (Montreal)
Kathryn Leger

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 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, said Domenic Crolla, a Gowlings Lafleur Henderson LLP lawyer specializing in professional and product liability, health law and information technology.

"There are a lot of gaps, particularly at the international level," the Ottawa-based Crolla said in an interview from Chicago, where 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?"

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September 22, 2006
MaineToday.com - Portland,ME

Maine health officials said Thursday they have found a third case of a resident becoming sick from the same strain of E. coli bacteria involved in a nationwide outbreak.

The case occurred in late August, the same time that the other two cases in the state occurred, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services said.

More can be found in the fsnet archives.

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September 22, 2006
San Jose Mercury News
Patrick May

Most September afternoons, this valley is powdered pink by a day's worth of dust hanging in the air above the fields. Kicked up by tractor and truck, the faint cloud of soil billows up from America's
richest vegetable fields, then clings to everything and everyone it touches, from landowner to seed salesman to field hand.

The full article can be found in the fsnet archives.

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September 22, 2006
Associated Press
Terence Chea

SALINAS, Calif. -- California produce growers and processors hope to salvage what's left of the spinach season and stop millions of dollars in losses by drafting new food-safety measures.

Federal officials have required the industry to adopt the measures before they will lift a week-old consumer warning on fresh spinach.

"We as an industry have to declare war on all food-borne illnesses," Tom Nassif, president of Western Growers Association, an industry group representing about 3,000 fruit and vegetable farmers in California and other states, said Thursday. "We have to do everything to assure the American public that our food is safe to consume."

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To read the FSnet summary, click here.

September 22, 2006
The Monterey County Herald (CA)
Dania Akkad

"We are learning more every day. This is a moving target. We have to recognize that," Bryan Silbermann, president of the Produce Marketing Association, said at a news conference at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas on Tuesday. At right is Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers.

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, a trade
association leader said Thursday.

Tom Nassif, president and chief executive officer of Western Growers, said 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.

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To read the FSnet summary, click here.

Sep 21, 2006
New California Media (CA)
Viji Sundaram
 
Editor's Note: In national emergencies like the recent outbreak of E. coli in spinach, it's time for government agencies to remember to call the nation's ethnic media, a primary source of information for millions of Americans. Viji Sundaram is New America Media's health editor.

SAN FRANCISCO--What's with the Food and Drug Administration? When they sounded the alarm on E. coli-contaminated spinach last week, using the media to put the word out, they seemed not to think that the ethnic press mattered. It looks like the Korean Daily, Ming Pao, The World Journal, and Sing Tao Daily -- all newspapers with large circulations, with the latter two read by hundreds of thousands of Chinese Americans each day -- were not on the FDA's radar. Nor were scores of other
ethnic media outlets across the country.

When I asked the FDA this question at a Sept. 19 press teleconference on the tainted spinach, using up my one question per reporter privilege, Julie Zawisza, the agency's communications person had this brusque response: "We did an extensive outreach with the national and local media." A click at the other end told me that my time was up.

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The FSnet summary can be found here.

September 21, 2006
KSEE-TV NBC 24 Fresno (CA)

Organic Pastures of Fresno County is the subject of a statewide recall and quarantine order announced by California State Veterinarian Dr. Richard Breitmeyer.

The recall states that all Organic Pastures whole and skim raw milk is to be pulled from retail shelves immediately. Consumers are being strongly urged to throw away any milk remaining in their refrigerators.

Organic Pastures is not permitted to produce raw milk for the retail market until further notice. The order also affects raw ice cream and raw colostrum, also produced by the company.

The quarantine was issued after a report of raw milk causing a bacterial illness in a 10-year old girl from San Bernardino County. An investigation by the California Department of Health Services detected two additional bacterial illnesses in children consuming raw milk. One was a 7-year old boy from Riverside County, the other an 8-year old San Diego County girl.

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Click here for the FSnet summary.

September 22, 2006
LA Times
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

WASHINGTON — 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 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.

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September 22, 2006
Bluefield WVVA (WV)

Organic milk is being recalling after three children tested positive for the Ecoli bacteria.

Raw milk sold by organic pastures of Fresno is being recalled by the state of California.

Three children who drank the un-pasteurized milk have tested positive for Ecoli.

While none of the samples of milk have tested positive for Ecoli, experts say they have established a link.
Officials say these cases are not related to the spinach Ecoli outbreak.

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This story can be found in the FSnet archives.

September 21, 2006
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Matt Weiser, Dorsey Griffith and Jim Downing, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Sep. 21--SAN JUAN BAUTISTA -- 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.

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.

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September 22, 2006
Washington Post
Michael S. Rosenwald and Sonia Geis

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 the Goodmans to a $360 million-a-year produce business.

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The full story is available in the FSnet archives.

September 22, 2006
Washington Post
Annys Shin

It took exactly 14 days from the time state health officials in Wisconsin noticed five cases of E. coli O157:H7 in the same county until investigators arrived Wednesday at a field in California's Salinas Valley in search of the bacteria that ended up in bagged spinach and sickened 157 people in 23 states.

The outbreak -- the largest, in terms of victims, caused by fresh produce -- has exposed strengths and weaknesses in the highly fragmented U.S. food safety system. And the extent of it has federal
officials talking about imposing tougher regulation.

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The FSnet summary can be found at this location.

September 21, 2006
KUTV - Salt Lake City, UT

SALT LAKE CITY An Idaho toddler has died in a Utah hospital from a kidney disease associated with E. coli infection, which 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.

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September 21, 2006
Associated Press
Andrew Bridges

WASHINGTON -- Like fine wine and cheese, spinach could be labeled with a place of origin to reassure shoppers jittery about an E. coli outbreak linked to leafy greens grown in California.

Federal health officials said Thursday that more explicit labeling was just one proposal under consideration for allowing fresh spinach back on the market. Others include stepped-up regulation of how spinach is grown and processed.

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