You cannot see it, taste it, or smell it. 250,000 E. coli O157:H7 (E. coli) bacteria will fit on the head of a pin.  Ten to 50 will kill your child or your grandmother.

More likely due the expertise of Children’s Hospitals, and other top medical centers around the country, deaths at times are avoided, however, often not before Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) nearly kills.  HUS, a complication from an E. coli infection, can cause severe damage to kidneys, intestines, and pancreas.  Falling into a coma and suffering further from cognitive impairment are all too common.

I’ve seen the inside of too many of those Intensive Care Units with families who are scared senseless as they watch their children or mother shutdown.  For 15 years, this has been my world.   When I was an undergraduate, I read Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle.  That book took the American public on a tour of the contaminated underbelly of the meat industry and they were sickened.  It led to the Pure Food & Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, versions of which are still in place today.

Until 1993, I thought—because of those laws—that the United States had a safe and secure food supply. But, then came the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli outbreak.  It killed four, and sickened hundreds, including many who were gravely ill with HUS and related complications.  Many of those victims became my clients.

Once again, there was a public outcry for safe meat.  The Food Safety & Inspection Service responded by creating and aggressively enforcing the Mandatory Risk Management System.  Based on research and practices of the U.S. Space Program, the risk management system established checkpoints at every phase of meat processing.

The presence of E. coli was defined as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act.  I continued to sue “Big Meat” as most of my clients up to 2002 were children who were made sick by eating E. coli contaminated meat.  I recovered over $350 million during this period from the meat industry and the restaurants they supplied in verdicts and settlements on behalf of those clients.  In 2003 recalls of meat laced with E. coli began to decline.  After 24 million pounds of contaminated beef were recalled in 34 separate incidents in 2002, recalls dropped off to just over a million pounds a year for the next three years, and then to just 181,900 pounds in 2006.  The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention saw E. coli – related illnesses drop 48%.

But then came Spring 2007. E. coli, which begins its life in the hindgut of a cow, mounted a surge on its home court.  And, it came back with a vengeance.  Thirty-three million pounds of beef would be recalled in 22 incidents.  All over the country, slaughterhouses, packing and distribution centers, retail outlets, and restaurants were once again testing positive for E. coli and people-mostly children-were getting seriously sick.

The American meat supply, which had again been touted as safest in the world, tumbled back into disarray.  But, why?

As with any unexplained mystery, theories abound.  Could it really just be meat industry complacency?  Did everyone respond to the good numbers in 2006 by taking a long nap?  Did meat processors slack off—consciously or unconsciously—and relax their testing procedures?

Or could it be better reporting?  Doctors are more aware of E. coli now, and perhaps when patients present symptoms of food poisoning; tests are more likely to be ordered.  When the presence of E coli is found and reported, a recall is triggered.

There’s always global warming.  Seriously though – very smart people have posited that droughts in the southeast and southwest have launched more fecal dust into the air, which then finds its way into beef slaughtering plants.  It has also been suggested that the deluging rainfall in other areas created muddy pens—an ideal environment for E. coli.

While we’re at it, why not blame high oil prices?  High gas prices have fueled (sorry) the growth of ethanol plants.  These plants are often built next to feedlots, and a byproduct of the ethanol production process—distiller’s grains—is considered an excellent (and cheap) alternative to corn for cattle feed.  Unfortunately, research at Kansas State University associates the use of distiller’s grains as feed with an increase in the incidence of E. coli in the hindguts of cattle.

Another controversial issue may affect the meat supply.  The New York Times reported that immigration officials began a crackdown at slaughterhouses across the country in the fall of 2006.  Experienced—albeit undocumented—workers have been cleared out and replaced with unskilled, inexperienced labor.

And then there’s Darwin.  Another theory holds that interventions have caused the wily E. coli microbes to adapt, selecting pathogens that are more resistant to detection or intervention.  E. coli back in our meat cannot be tolerated.  We’ve got a lot of summer of 2008 left. Summer has always been kind to the E. coli bug.  More than 5.6 million pounds of E. coli contaminated beef has been recalled so far in 2008, most supplied by Nebraska Beef Ltd., via the Kroger Grocery chain.  All of which is responsible for a multi-state outbreak of E. coli that again is filling up the ICU’s in Hospitals in the seven states.

What is being done?  Not much.

Congress has held some hearings, but the only new reform is that the names of retail stores that received meat and poultry involved in recalls with high health risk will be made public.  Good as far as it goes.

However, despite 76,000,000 American’s being sickened, 325,000 hospitalized and 5,000 deaths each year, food safety has not made it as a Presidential campaign issue.  Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have about run out its clock.  But E. coli is back in our meat and we better care.

Solutions?Continue Reading E. coli O157:H7 is a powerful and deadly bacterium