Got E.Coli? "Outbreak" Has Nothing To Do With Spinach

[Jcrowley]

How Ready-to-Eat Spinach Is Only Part of the E. Coli Problem
A food safety expert says it likely came from processing the produce right in the fields, a practice that's become much more common
By ALICE PARK

When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning to consumers on Thursday about E coli contamination in bagged spinach, it didn't come as a surprise to Michael Doyle. So far, 50 people have fallen ill and one death has been connected to the dangerous E coli 0157:H7 bacterial infection, and the director of food safety at the University of Georgia says that outbreaks like this one will only continue if produce manufacturers don't change their practices.

E coli 0157 is a particularly nasty strain of the E coli that lives and thrives in our digestive tract. Animals such as cows tolerate 0157 far better than people, and often shed the bacteria in their feces. The bacteria can then infect crops such as lettuce, spinach, onions, or even apples when contaminated manure is used as fertilizer, or when contaminated water is used to irrigate fields. Most recently, E coli 0157 found in bagged salads packaged by Dole sickened over two dozen people in 2005.

These outbreaks, warns Doyle, are an inevitable byproduct of the way that many fruit and vegetable manufacturers have streamlined their production — and cut costs — by doing some of the processing of their ready-to-eat produce right in the fields, and not in the more controlled atmosphere of a factory. He sees it as a dangerous practice that could contribute to contamination." Two to three years ago, I was asked to go out and view what was going on in the fields when there was an outbreak associated with a fast food restaurant chain from their cut-up lettuce," he told TIME." Every company at the time was using the same concept to process head lettuce — they would core the lettuce in the field, remove the outside leaves, and put it in chlorinated water. The goal is to reduce costs, because you don't have to take the waste from the factory and bring it back to the field. The problem is, they are working out in the dirt. There are so many different ways that E coli can get into the food this way."

The FDA's director of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Dr. Robert Brackett, recognizes the riskiness of such processing in the field, and sent a warning letter to the California growers that had provided the contaminated lettuce in last year's outbreak, noting that" claims that 'we cannot take action until we know the cause' are unacceptable."

http://www.time.com/time/health/printout/0,8816,1535476,00.html

E. Coli is more rightly seen as a manifestation of Corporate Greed and Industrial Agriculture. Bird Flu anyone?

[pooja]

1. Welcome to the genetically mod. foods and overly processed

unregulated b.s. that represents our FDA... anyone believe they are poisoning us yet?

[Jcrowley]

2. Revolving Door

Elected officials who receive campaign contributions from the meat, dairy, and egg industries often return the favor by working to ensure that industry-friendly officials are appointed to high-ranking posts in government agencies such as the USDA, the EPA, and the FDA. In turn, elected and appointed officials who do the bidding of the farmed-animal industries are frequently rewarded with cushy industry jobs once their terms in office end. As a result of this “revolving door” between the government and the meat industry, it’s not surprising that many top officials in government agencies have previously worked for the very industries that they’ve been assigned to monitor.

http://www.goveg.com/government_forsale.asp

[pinto]

3. Some further snips from this article:

<snip>

Fortunately, when outbreaks do occur, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta is better equipped than ever to investigate clusters of disease cases and trace their cause. In this outbreak, the first call came into the CDC on Wednesday afternoon. An epidemiologist at the state health department in Wisconsin had been investigating almost 20 reports of E coli poisoning in a matter of days, and after some initial lab work and extensive interviews with the victims, all of whom had reported bloody diarrhea, the scientists there suspected that bagged sp> inach might be the culprit, and called Atlanta. Shortly after, Dr. Patricia Griffin, chief of enteric diseases at CDC says that the agency received a call from an epidemiologist in the state health department in Oregon. He had five cases, also traced to bagged spinach, and wondered if anyone else in the country had been reporting E coli illnesses. The information was added to CDC's database, and after comparing the lab work done in the two states, says Griffin, the CDC realized the cases could be traced to the same subtype of E coli, which suggested that the illnesses had a common cause — bagged spinach. After more investigation on Thursday to confirm the source, including trying to come up with the actual brand or brands responsible, the CDC decided on Thursday afternoon to issue its warning to consumers on bagged spinach." We're still very early in this investigation," she told TIME." New information in coming in constantly."

<my comment>

Response to this seemed pretty quick, overall. One point that ought to be made, imo, is that bagged spinach is cut and bagged in the warehouse, not the field. No reports of
E coli infections from whole spinach, untrimmed from the field, have been filed.

In my limited experience, it sure seems the vector for infection (which is what the CDC looks for) is in the bagging process, not the field. Someone's not washing their hands, somewhere, or the cutting/bagging machinery isn't cleaned properly, but it appears to be in the warehouse.

Another possible factor is we've had some fog less hot days along the Central Coast. San Juan Bautista usually enjoys morning and afternoon fog, hence the spinach production. Perhaps the heat, coupled with the bagging helped an E coli infection in the packing plant to run rampant. :shrug:

Personally, I don't buy trimmed and bagged produce.

I could be off base, but I've seen the CDC in action at the State and local level. They are thorough. If the spinach was infected in the field, I trust they'll figure it out.

[gully]

15. The spinach issue came from nearby streams to my understanding?

I read here that contaminated water is thought to be the source?

[kestrel91316]

4. I wanna know what f---in' rocket scientist got the bright idea in the

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, for pete's sake, to process greens out in the fields where all the dirt is.................

Somebody making these decisions needs to be force-fed a basic college-level microbiology course (complete with lab).

Dumbasses.

[Jcrowley]

5. It's possible

the idea comes from greedy "cost-cutting" CEO's.

:shrug:

[leftchick]

22. speaking of Rocket Science, Rocket Fuel in your lettuce anyone?

Rocket Fuel Residues Found in Lettuce

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ISSUES GAG ORDER ON EPA DISCUSSIONS OF POSSIBLE
ROCKET-FUEL TAINTED LETTUCE


PETER WALDMAN, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

The Bush administration has imposed a gag order on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from publicly discussing perchlorate pollution, even as two new studies reveal high levels of the rocket-fuel component may be contaminating the nation's lettuce supply.

The lettuce studies, one published by a nonprofit environmental group and one in final preparation by an EPA laboratory in Athens, Georgia., address a crucial question in the current process of developing a federal drinking-water standard for perchlorate: whether Americans are ingesting the chemical from food sources in addition to drinking water. The answer, according to both studies, strongly suggests they are, which means that any eventual drinking-water standard will have to be that much stricter to account for the other sources of perchlorate exposure.

Perchlorate pollution in drinking water has become a major concern in some 20 states across the country, after an EPA recommendation last year that found perchlorate in drinking water poses dangers to human health, particularly to infant development, in concentrations above one part per billion.

The Pentagon and several defense contractors, who face billions of dollars in potential cleanup liability for perchlorate pollution, vehemently oppose that EPA health-risk assessment, arguing perchlorate is safe in drinking water at levels 70 to 200 times higher than what the EPA says is safe. In January, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, (Rep.- Oklahoma.) chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, weighed in on the industry's side with a long list of questions and criticisms of the EPA's report.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/lettuce042903.cfm

[ruiner4u]

6. Great post...

My dad had a nasty bout with food poisoning last week.. For two nights he was telling me how miserable he was and how his insides were on fire. he went to the hospital when he passed blood in his urine. Thankfully he went to the doctor and got antibiotics...so he is fine

But this scares me because of last weeks spinach scare.. He didn't get the poisoning here since me and my mom ate the safe food and produce. The only other place he could have gotten it was from fast food when he was on lunch break..

right now I'm thinking when I order my big mac,I'm going to say NO PRODUCE

[etherealtruth]

14. Welcome to DU ....

With many cases of "food poisoning" antibiotics are useless (with e. coli, the "culprit" is toxins produced by the bacteria)... care is generally supportive (hydration, electrolyte replacement...).

Glad to hear your father is doing well.

[jayctravis]

7. So...to simplify...

since they're preparing the produce in the field...I would assume using knives and machines that get dirty in the open rather than removing them to a much cleaner factory preparation environment before the food is cut into is what's causing this?

[wiley]

8. Anthrax? Hepatitis?

Where water is re-used or scarce or expensive, look for disease. No pretty package can kill it. Millions of gallons of chlorine are being poured into NYS water every day now. Do you think they do that in other states? Do they even track water-borne pathogens. Noticing a lot of people with really bad allergies?

[pinniped]

9. Processing in the fields?

THey must have port-o-pots without the requisite sink.

There's one contamination point.

[SoCalDem]

30. Lots don't even HAVE porto-pots..

and if the produce comes from Mexico, some growers use "guess what" for fertilizer...(answer?..you don't want to know)..look up effluent..

[spoony]

10. Well, thank goodness the FDA has sent a letter

Things should be fine now. :sarcasm:

[AtomicKitten]

11. it's becoming hard to tell where this govenment begins

and where corporations end ... the same goes for churches

[IdaBriggs]

12. We almost lost my niece to this when she was six years old.

She spent three months in the hospital, three weeks of it in intensive care on the "last chance respirator" for a good portion of it.

If you have ever seen a beloved child on a hospital respirator, you know what hell is. I'll never forget it.

They still don't know how she contracted the strain she had, and she is one of only a handful of children who got it, and is still alive.

When the Bush FDA started lowering the safety standards on our meat and poultry protections (demanding inspectors not halt the lines unless "fecal matter" was larger than a quarter, and refusing to inspect any of the product at any other point in the process, while threating to fire inspectors who were "wrong" or halted the lines too often), I found myself ... angry. Its not something a lot of other people care about, but my niece (now 14) has permanent kidney damage, which means she takes medications to control her blood pressure, and has since she was six years old. We are lucky to have her; we know other families weren't.

I place my curse upon every member of this administration who places profits before public health. Its a large grouping I know, but my righteous hatred for them is boundless. :(

[Horse with no Name]

27. I am glad your niece survived this

the last ditch ventilator that you talk about is called a "jet vent". It gives me nightmares to watch someone hooked to one. They are brutal.
It is never a good sign when someone is on one--most of the time, the outcome is not very good.
Was she in the batch of kids that got E Coli from Jack in the Box?

[LWolf]

13. I sometimes eat produce right in the field

without washing it. Of course, the "field" is my garden, it's watered with clean well water, there are no pesticides or herbicides, and none of my animals that provide fertilizer are sick. :shrug:

Factory farming. x(

[druidity33]

16. i thought the same...

I usually wash my lettuce/greens well and i pick most from my own garden or get it from my farmer neighbor.

Funny thing is, the first time i bought store spinach in ages was last week. On the day the 'news' of the spinach scare broke, my wife had a spinach salad, i had some on my sandwich and my 5 year-old had spinach poppers for lunch (that's spinach wrapped with bits of cheese, for tasty/healthy pop-em treats)

it was Olivia's Organic Baby Spinach in one of those plastic containers (is that considered a bag?)...

couldn't agree more about Factory farming... awful stuff.

[LWolf]

19. I love fresh spinach.

Of course, I let dandelions grow, and also occasionally include young dandelion greens in my salad. :shrug:

[etherealtruth]

17. I have real "problems" with the current state of factory farms in the U.S.

The only thing I wanted to note was that E. coli is a normal constituent of the intestinal tract of warm blooded animals, an animal (us included) need not be ill for us to be sickened by E. coli (when foodstuffs are contaminated with it)

[LWolf]

18. Of course!

Just how does contamination happen?

What is it that I do differently, that my animals, and myself, have never been contaminated?

I don't sanitize the barn or the animals. I spread their manure on the garden. I feed them some homegrown grass and some grass, grain, and minerals from the feed store. They have clean water available. I worm them and vaccinate them regularly. No hormones, no antibiotics. They are all "free range," and no one is overcrowded. :shrug:

[etherealtruth]

21. I know, I know ...

It also begs the question: how did "we" ever survive into adulthood?

It is admirable how you choose to care for your livestock and crops ... as I originally stated I have real problems with corporate farming...

That still does not change the fact that E. coli is a normal constituent of the digestive tract of warm blooded animals and contamination is POSSIBLE from the feces of the best cared for animals.

My guess is that you do not cut corners to squeeze out the last cent from workers , animals or the land ... whether you do it by design or intuit it, whatever you are doing is working.

Prior to changing careers I was a healthcare worker (RN) ... believe me please, death resulting from the toxins from E. coli is horrific. I strongly believe people need to understand where it comes from and do what is in their power to prevent contamination.

[LWolf]

26. That is a good point, of course.

What IS in our power to prevent contamination? At least as far as small homesteaders go; factory farms are another story altogether.

Somehow walking it into the house to wash it in the sink doesn't seem all that different. Is it to make sure our manure is hot-composted or buried? Is it to keep animals out of the fields we're growing food crops in? Is it to make sure everything is rinsed in the kitchen sink, rather than with the hose, or to use drip irrigation to keep from splashing soil onto plants? Do all animals carry it, or just sick animals? Is there a test for the animals, or the manure? A treatment for the animals?

These are elementary questions, yet living surrounded by small, independent ranches and farms, I've never heard the subject mentioned!

[spinbaby]

20. I'd think twice about that

Once I watched a neighborhood cat energetically spraying a row of lettuce in my garden. You betcha everything gets washed carefully, organic or no.

[LWolf]

28. Happily,

I no longer have feral cats, and the neighbor cat from several acres away no longer visits, since the day I caught him in the live trap I had set for feral cats. :evilgrin:

I do have 2 cats of my own, who are fastidious about their litter. Generally, cats stick to their home territory here. I only share a fence with one neighbor, hence the visiting cat. The cats deal with hawks, owls, coons, etc. inside the fences; outside they are coyote bait, so they don't often go beyond the home boundary. Or those that do don't last long.

It's a good thing, or I'd be building cages around garden beds to keep cats out, their waste containing way too many unhealthful threats.

Generally the greens will get washed. It's the berries, the peas, and sometimes the tomatoes that are consumed on the spot, lol.

[RiDuvessa]

25. Mostly I agree with you.

However, just because your animals aren't sick, doesn't mean that they don't have E. Coli in their fecal matter. E. Coli naturally lives in intestines. That's why it's a problem when people don't wash their hands.

[LWolf]

29. So, does it just make people sick,

but not livestock? Is there a particular kind of animal it tends to favor, or be more common with, or a particular method of animal husbandry that E. Coli thrives in, or doesn't?

[RiDuvessa]

31. I'll tell you what I know.

I'm not an expert, but I will tell you what I know.

E. Coli is a family of bacteria that lives in the lower intestine of all mammals. It is symbiotic as it is required for digestion. That's why animals or people don't have to be sick to pass on the bacteria. It is present in the fecal matter of all mammals, no matter how you raise them. If ingested, it can make any mammal sick.

As far as using manure as a fertilizer, if you use it during the growing season, it will leave E Coli on the crops. It's recommended that if you do use it as fertilizer, you either compost it, or apply it during the fall. If it's properly composted, the heat of the compost pile should reach 145 degrees Fahrenheit. This will kill the E. Coli as long as the pile is properly turned. If its applied in the fall, then by the time spring rolls around, the bacteria will be dead.

I have attached a couple of links. One is the wikipedia article on E Coli, and the other is an article on using manure as fertilizer. They both have further lists of links if you're interested.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli>

<http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/garden/07742.html>

Hope that helps!

:)

[LWolf]

32. Thanks for the links!

I have always done either hot composting, or sheet composting in the fall. Most gardeners don't apply manure directly to a crop unless it is well-aged or composted. I'll check out the links, but I don't think I have too much to be concerned about.

[Virginia Dare]

23. I have a running argument with my relatives...

about letting kids lick the spoon when baking goods containing raw eggs. My mother always pulls out the argument, I've been doing it this way for 45 years, etc. etc.

I try to tell her our food supply is NOTHING like it was even 20 years ago in terms of the processing and the imports.

This is a growing problem.

[Flying Dream Blues]

24. My freeper relative told me it was because "the Mexicans just

go to the bathroom in the fields." So I guess she heard this from Rush. I just about took her head off--it's stunning how stupid and prejudiced people are.