The Tulsa City-County Health Department is investigating at least four cases of E. coli infection – two confirmed and two suspected – three of which are linked to the same child-care program.
No one wants to engage in cross-the-pond semantics when people are dying from foodborne illness, but some Americans have some pointed advice for Europeans as they struggle with a devastating outbreak of E. coli O104.
Yesterday, the World Health Organization said the bug was a new strain.
Of particular concern to officials in the United States have been reports that the European outbreak involves bacteria resistant to antibiotics — not because such reports suggest a particularly dangerous bug, but because they suggest that the Europeans are not looking in the right direction to fight the outbreak.
The accepted medical wisdom in the United States is that E. coli infections should not be treated with antibiotics at all, even if the strain is vulnerable to the drugs. And when a strain shows signs of resistance, treatment with the drugs is a particularly bad idea, said Dr. Phillip Tarr, a professor of pediatrics at Washington University.
To the dismay of American onlookers, European doctors seem focused on the issue of antibiotics and alarmed that they have not found one that works. Prof. Jörg F. Debatin, the medical director and chief executive of the University Medical Center of Hamburg-Eppendorf, where many of the patients are being treated, said in an interview on Tuesday, “There is, as yet, no antibiotics that can treat it.”
American officials were sympathetic to the challenges that European health authorities faced in tracing the source of the outbreak, since such investigations in the United States have been similarly long and confused. The foods involved in the outbreak — tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce — are often eaten together, and their supply chains can be impossibly complicated to untangle. When a restaurant needs salad fixings, suppliers often mix vegetables from a variety of farms — making a trace to the source close to impossible.
“This bug has been seen before,” said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the division of food-borne, bacterial and mycotic diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. That the strain may have genetic material that makes it resistant to antibiotics, however, is intriguing, he said.
The German outbreak is likely to increase concerns over the safety of fresh vegetables, Dr. Tarr said. “I can tell you how to make a hamburger safe, but I can’t tell you how to do that with a head of lettuce,” Dr. Tarr said. “And that’s important.”
No one wants to engage in cross-the-pond semantics when people are dying from foodborne illness, but some Americans have some pointed advice for Europeans as they struggle with a devastating outbreak of E. coli O104.
Yesterday, the World Health Organization said the bug was a new strain.
Of particular concern to officials in the United States have been reports that the European outbreak involves bacteria resistant to antibiotics — not because such reports suggest a particularly dangerous bug, but because they suggest that the Europeans are not looking in the right direction to fight the outbreak.
The accepted medical wisdom in the United States is that E. coli infections should not be treated with antibiotics at all, even if the strain is vulnerable to the drugs. And when a strain shows signs of resistance, treatment with the drugs is a particularly bad idea, said Dr. Phillip Tarr, a professor of pediatrics at Washington University.
To the dismay of American onlookers, European doctors seem focused on the issue of antibiotics and alarmed that they have not found one that works. Prof. Jörg F. Debatin, the medical director and chief executive of the University Medical Center of Hamburg-Eppendorf, where many of the patients are being treated, said in an interview on Tuesday, “There is, as yet, no antibiotics that can treat it.”
American officials were sympathetic to the challenges that European health authorities faced in tracing the source of the outbreak, since such investigations in the United States have been similarly long and confused. The foods involved in the outbreak — tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce — are often eaten together, and their supply chains can be impossibly complicated to untangle. When a restaurant needs salad fixings, suppliers often mix vegetables from a variety of farms — making a trace to the source close to impossible.
“This bug has been seen before,” said Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the division of food-borne, bacterial and mycotic diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. That the strain may have genetic material that makes it resistant to antibiotics, however, is intriguing, he said.
The German outbreak is likely to increase concerns over the safety of fresh vegetables, Dr. Tarr said. “I can tell you how to make a hamburger safe, but I can’t tell you how to do that with a head of lettuce,” Dr. Tarr said. “And that’s important.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says two people have died and its working with other health types after three cases of Listeria were reported since May 20.
All three cases involved people of Hispanic or Latino heritage, according to the CDPHE.
The two people who died were a man in his 30s and a woman in her 60s.
The Gyukaku restaurant chain in Japan, without offering any credible information about the microbial food safety steps it takes, has decided to blame Australian beef for an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak which sickened 20 of its customers at the Korean-style barbecue restaurant in Japan.
Of the 20 people who became sick in Toyama prefecture, 15 were infected with the O157 strain of E. coli bacteria after eating at an outlet of the popular Gyukaku restaurant chain on May 6, local officials said yesterday.
The company said it had changed its Australian supplier, but a public health inspection of the affected restaurant did not find E. coli bacteria.
At least four people in Japan have died from E. coli O111 bacteria food poisoning since April after eating raw beef at a different low-price Korean-style barbecue restaurant chain.
It’s not the lower price. Cook cows. Fire invented for reason.
The World Health Organization said today the E. coli O104 responsible for a deadly outbreak that has left 18 dead and sickened hundreds in Europe is a new strain that has never been seen before.
Preliminary genetic sequencing suggests the strain is a mutant form of two different E. coli bacteria, with aggressive genes that could explain why the Europe-wide outbreak appears to be so massive and dangerous, the agency said.
Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO, told The Associated Press that "this is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before."
She added that the new strain has "various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing" than the hundreds of E. coli strains that people naturally carry in their intestines.
David Tribe of Australia writes that rapid work in China has applied third generation DNA decoding technologies to decode the German outbreak disease bacterium genome. It has revealed the germ to be a hybrid (which can be described alternatively as a chimera, a true natural GMO).
The novel germ has some virulence abilities of a class of pathogenic E. coli bacteria called entero-aggregative E. coli (#EAEC). It has similarities to a bacterial strain called EAEC 55989 , which was isolated in the Central African Republic and is known to cause serious diarrhea. EAEC typically carry extra mini-chromosomes called plasmids. The German outbreak strain has the typical plasmid genes of EAEC bacteria as well as shigatoxin genes seen in EHEC germs.
The work decoding the genome done in Shenzhen, China, is a triumph of rapid genetic investigation using high-technology methods. The German outbreak strain is a new strain which has acquired specific gene sequences that have a role in pathogenicity, causing hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS).
The outbreak is already considered the third-largest involving E. coli in recent world history (as opposed to alien history? – dp), and it may be the deadliest. Twelve people died in a 1996 Japanese outbreak that reportedly sickened more than 9,000, and seven died in a 2000 Canadian outbreak.
Journalists, how hard is it to use Google? The deadliest outbreak would be Scotland in 1996 in which at least 21 died from E. coli O157 in roast beef sandwiches served at assisted living homes. The previous high was 17 at a nursing home in London, Ontario in 1985.
American retailer, Target, is moving into Canada, taking over a bunch of Zellers stores, which were bought by the original Hudson Bay Company in 1978 – Canada, beaver, pelts, etc.
Maybe Target can get the dates right on the babyfood it sells.
Kitchener, Ontario, mother Melodie White filed a complaint with the federal food watchdog and the local public health unit after her six-month-old son, Gabriel, became sick over the May long weekend.
She bought several cans of baby food at the Zellers store in the Laurentian Power Center a few weeks ago without realizing they had expired last summer. White became alarmed after she fed the food to her son and he developed a fever and diarrhea, she said.
Her son was sick for about four days, she said.
To back up her claims, White returned to the same store and bought another six cans, all expired. Then she called the store to complain.
The store removed the expired baby food after being made aware of the problem. Inspectors from both the Region of Waterloo Public Health and the inspection agency also visited the Zellers store to make sure the expired baby food was off the shelves.
Smalligan said six of the seven children had some contact but couldn’t discuss what that contact was or if the bacteria was showing up in a certain part of town or at a certain location. He did say that several of the children were related to each other.
Amy went to France the other day and I’ve got the 1973 classic, Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett running through my head (check the video below; now that’s a moustache).
But Amy’s worried about cucumbers.
This is a photo of her airplane meal.
For a continent that prides itself on traceability and farmers’ markets, the response to the E. coli O104 outbreak, which has killed 17, stricken 470 with severe kidney disease and sickened some 1,500, has been woefully inadequate.
And now, 10 days after the outbreak emerged, the Germans say it wasn’t Spanish cucumbers in some sort of European revisionist history (they’re good at that).
Here are the top-5 dumb things about the E. coli O104 outbreak; at some point politics may take a back seat to public health; but this is Europe.
Spain’s agriculture minister Rosa Aguilar defended her country’s fresh produce and said it is still unclear exactly when and where the vegetables were contaminated.
She even tucked in to some cucumbers grown in Spain on Monday to show they cannot be blamed for one of the largest E. coli outbreaks in the world.
What no one has mentioned is the on-farm food safety steps that Spanish and other growers, distributors and retailers take to ensure microbial food safety. An outbreak this huge is an opportunity to brag – if procedures are in place. But maybe that’s why no one is bragging.
4. Terrible journalism
Why has no one tried to track down the source and looked at food safety procedures? The New York Times, 10 days into the crisis went with, Outbreak of Infections, probably the worst headline ever. E. coli O104 is not herpes. Time magazine went with, don’t panic, but be concerned.
3. It’s a trade/money thing
Contrary to humanistic goodwill, most food safety trade issues have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with market access. That’s why Gerd Sonnleitner, the head of the German Farmers’ Association (DVB), called for stronger regulation of imported vegetables and said there has been unwarranted fearmongering about German vegetable products.
“We have very strict rules over the entire chain on controlling and accepting what we think is right,” Sonnleitner said. “Unfortunately imports are tested much more laxly.
So why isn’t Sonnleitner explaining all the things German farmers do to enhance on-farm food safety?
No need. They’ve decided to sue German health authority the Robert Koch Institute and the Federal Consumer Ministry for damages over warnings about eating vegetables made to the public in the wake of the E. coli bacteria outbreak.
2. It’s a small risk thing
More people die every day in car accidents than are likely to perish from the current E. coli outbreak. Yet we know every time we get behind the wheel of a car that we are taking a small risk. We don’t, on the other hand, expect to die from eating a cucumber.
The left-wing Berliner Zeitung was the strongest proponent of the latter case, arguing that 21st-century consumers were so geographically and psychologically disconnected from their food production that they had only themselves to blame.
The right-wing Berliner Morgenpost pointed out that swine flu resulted in a much higher death toll than that caused so far by E. coli. And swine flu, ultimately, was seen as media hype.
Even the small risk posed by the bacteria could be avoided by taking sensible hygiene precautions. And if a person does get sick, they can see their doctor right away.
“Women prepare food more often, and it is there they could have come into contact with it, possibly while cleaning vegetables or other foodstuffs.”
In a German version of blame-the-consumer, the Robert Koch Institute has recommended people improve kitchen hygiene, making sure in particular that cutting boards and knives are clean.
It’s doubtful that 1,500 women practiced lousy kitchen cleanliness at the same time across Germany.
Medical authorities appeared no closer to discovering either the source of the infection or the mystery at the heart of the outbreak: why the unusual strain of the E. coli bacteria appears to be causing so many cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome, which attacks the kidneys and can cause seizures, strokes and comas.
The outbreak has hit at least nine European countries but virtually all of the sick people either live in Germany or recently traveled there.
German authorities initially pointed to cucumbers from Spain after people in Hamburg fell ill after eating fresh produce. After tests of some 250 samples of vegetables from around the city, only the three cucumbers from Spain and one other of unknown origin tested positive E. coli.
But further tests showed that those vegetables, while contaminated, did not cause the outbreak. Officials are still warning all Germans to avoid eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce.
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O157:H7 outbreak which sickened 20 of its customers at the Korean-style barbecue restaurant in Japan..jpg)
ntestines.
But Amy’s worried about cucumbers.
probably the worst headline ever. E. coli O104 is not herpes. 
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either live in Germany or recently traveled there.