When California lettuce growers were courting Canadian hacks on a paid junket, they probably didn’t talk too much about the possible links between several E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and California Romaine lettuce that were being uncovered at the same time.

Or the sick people.

The Sponge-Bob-Colbert leafy greens cone of silence was once again deployed.

Phyllis Entis of eFoodAlert confirms tonight that Romaine lettuce grown on a
California farm is the probable source of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses that were reported in April and May in California, New Brunswick and Quebec.

The binational outbreak sickened at least 18 people in New Brunswick (Canada) and nine residents of California. At least one resident of Quebec also was infected with the same outbreak strain.

The New Brunswick outbreak victims ate at Jungle Jim’s, a restaurant in Miramichi, between April 23rd and April 26th, and had consumed romaine lettuce, either in a salad, as part of a wrap, or as a garnish on hamburger. Most of the nine California victims had eaten at a single (unnamed) restaurant in April 2012, according to information provided by Ronald Owens (Office of Public Affairs, California Department of Public Health). A case control study implicated lettuce as the source of the California outbreak. No information has been released on the Quebec cases(s).

California was notified in May by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that CDC had learned of an outbreak in Canada, caused by the same strain of E. coli O157:H7 as the California illnesses. Traceback investigations carried out by Canada and California both led to a single California farm that supplied lettuce to the California restaurant and to Jungle Jim’s in New Brunswick. Lettuce from the implicated fields was also supplied to Quebec.

At the same time, Marie-Andree Guimont wrote a lovely puff piece in divine.ca after her educational – and funded – trip to Monterey, California, to see how leafy greens are grown.

“Awareness of food safety has allowed us to change the culture among producers, said Scott Horsfall, CEO of California LGMA, with a straight face. “They are proud of their training, and it therefore becomes their badge of honor.”

The Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement would be a lot more credible if they’d come clean about outbreaks and data, instead of ole’ timey public relations crap, buying off would-be journalists, one at a time. And governments. Canadian regulators will only accept leafy greens entering the country that are LGMA-certified. No idea why.

Health types may want to figure out a policy for going public about outbreaks. Finding out later just further erodes any remaining credibility.

A table of leafy green related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/leafy-greens-related-outbreaks.