Amy’s in Switzerland working on some memories, so while she had a salad with cucumbers and raw sprouts, me and Sorenne had pizza.
I have no trouble saying, ‘no sprouts’ and am known at a local Manhattan (Kansas) eatery as the no-sprouts person. So is Amy. But not in Europe.
There’s a lot of social protocol over there, in Europe, and I try to stay out of it when visiting, but when there’s an outbreak of foodborne illness linked to 18 dead, 520 with HUS and 1,733 sick, then I’d say something.
I say something if an employee doesn’t wash their hands.
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.
German Health Minister Daniel Bahr said Monday that authorities still haven’t pinned down definitively the source of the E. coli infection — and "we unfortunately still have to expect a rising number of cases."
An EU official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to standing regulations, said the transport chain was long, and the cucumbers from Spain could have been contaminated at any point along the route.
Spain, meanwhile, went on the defensive, saying there was no proof that the E. coli outbreak has been caused by Spanish vegetables.
"You can’t attribute the origin of this sickness to Spain," Spain’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido told reporters in Brussels. "There is no proof and that’s why we are going to demand accountability from those who have blamed Spain for this matter."
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a risk assessment today that the HUS/STEC E. coli O104 outbreak is the largest in the world of its kind, with 14 dead, 352 with hemolytic uremic syndrome and over 1,200 sick.
German Health Minister Daniel Bahr said Monday that authorities still haven’t pinned down definitively the source of the E. coli infection — and "we unfortunately still have to expect a rising number of cases."
An EU official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to standing regulations, said the transport chain was long, and the cucumbers from Spain could have been contaminated at any point along the route.
Spain, meanwhile, went on the defensive, saying there was no proof that the E. coli outbreak has been caused by Spanish vegetables.
"You can’t attribute the origin of this sickness to Spain," Spain’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido told reporters in Brussels. "There is no proof and that’s why we are going to demand accountability from those who have blamed Spain for this matter."
EU spokesman Frederic Vincent said Sunday that two greenhouses in Spain that were identified as the source of the contaminated cucumbers had ceased activities. The water and soil there are being analyzed to see whether they were the problem, and the results are expected Tuesday or Wednesday, Vincent said.
More women have died in Germany from an E. coli O104 outbreak linked to cucumbers grown in Spain, bringing the death toll to 10. Of the 1,000 or so sick, 276 have hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).
Hospitals in the city of Hamburg, where more than 400 people are believed to have been infected, were said to be overwhelmed and sending patients to clinics elsewhere in the country.
Austria’s food safety agency ordered a recall of organically grown cucumbers, tomatoes and aubergines supplied by a Spanish producer which is thought to be the source of the outbreak. It said 33 Austrian stores were affected.
According to Denmark’s National Serum Institute, there are nine confirmed cases, with at least another eight people suspected of having the intestinal infection, also known as VTEC, in Denmark.
Sweden has reported 25 E. coli cases, of whom 10 developed HUS, according to the European Commission, while Britain counted three cases (two HUS).
Officials in the Czech Republic said the cucumbers may have been exported there, as well as to Austria, Hungary and Luxembourg.
"As long as the experts in Germany and Spain have not been able to name the source of the agent without any doubt, the general warning for vegetables still holds," German Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner said on Sunday in a report in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
The European Commission says experts are now probing two agricultural sites in southern Spain, in Almeria and Malaga, suspected of exporting products, most likely cucumbers, tainted with E. coli.
More women have died in Germany from an E. coli O104 outbreak linked to cucumbers grown in Spain, bringing the death toll to seven (or nine, depending on the media source). Of the 800 or so sick, 276 have hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).
The European Commission says experts are now probing two agricultural sites in southern Spain, in Almeria and Malaga, suspected of exporting products, most likely cucumbers, tainted with E.coli.
Fear of infection has lead many in Germany to change their eating habits. A survey carried out by Emnid for Bild am Sonntag has found that 58 percent of Germans are following the advice of the Robert Koch Institute and not eating raw cucumbers, lettuce or tomatoes.
"The Andalusian authorities are investigating to find out where the contamination comes from and when it took place," said a spokesman for the Spanish food safety agency AESA on Friday.
Spanish senior official Josep Puxeu said Germany informed the press about the disease before informing the EU, as it should have done, and that Spain has stopped cucumber deliveries while stressing there is no proof that the EHEC entered Germany through Spanish cucumbers.
There has been no report of contamination within Spain, AESA said.
Meanwhile, the outbreak is spreading across northern Europe. Health officials in Denmark and Sweden reported Friday a total of 32 confirmed cases of people afflicted by the EHEC bacterium, all of whom had previously been travelling in Germany.
Denmark’s veterinary and food products agency said Friday it had found contaminated cucumbers from Spain in the stocks of two wholesalers in the west of the country and ordered them withdrawn.
In May 2005, hundreds of people in Northern Europe became sick from lettuce grown in Spain that was watered with human sewage.
As reported by Eurosurveillance, the rare multiresistant Salmonella Typhimurium DT 104B caused an outbreak of 60 microbiologically confirmed cases in May 2005, widely distributed across southern and western Finland. The isolates had an identical pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and antimicrobial resistance pattern (ACSSuT); also, 80% of the confirmed cases were in females and 45% were in people aged between 15-24 years (range 7 to 53).
Hundreds were also sickened in the U.K. The Daily Mail was direct: “Drought-hit Spanish farmers have been using household sewage to water lettuce.”
Spain’s environment minister at the time said, "When they don’t get irrigation water they turn to other kinds of water."
Farmers from Beniel, in south-east Spain, told the El Pais newspaper, "The water we receive is not enough, so we are forced to mix it with the sewage from our own homes."
Farmers’ leaders in the Murcia region insist it would be wrong to view all Spanish produce as unsafe based on the behavior of a few growers.
Francisco Gil, a local union leader who grows peppers, said at the time, "That is like calling all Englishmen drunks just because one or two of them can’t hold their drink.”
So assuming German health types are correct and Spanish cucumbers are to blame for an E. coli O104 outbreak that has killed five and sickened over 600, it reinforces a food safety basic: know thy supplier – and know what they are doing when the auditor or inspector isn’t around, which is 99.99999 per cent of the time.
Three of four cucumber samples that tested positive for E. coli O104 in Germany were grown on two organic farms in Spain.
The news comes as the number of victims suffering from hemolytic uremic syndrome reached 214 out of approximately 600 ill, and at least four dead.
Kai Kupferschmidt writes in Science Insider today that authorities in Hamburg announced they had isolated the bacterium that is likely causing the outbreak, E. coli O104:H4 , from four cucumbers. Three of the samples came from a big market in Hamburg that sells to greengrocer’s shops as well as restaurants and caterers. Those cucumbers came from two organic producers in Spain. Scientists had speculated in the last few days that manure from infected animals used on an organic farm might have spread the bacteria to vegetables. A fourth sample came from a restaurant, and it was not immediately clear where that cucumber had been grown. After the announcement, stores started taking Spanish cucumbers off the shelves.
Consumers had already been hesitant about vegetables since scientists at RKI and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment announced the results of a first case-control-study on Wednesday evening: Women who had become infected with EHEC were a lot more likely to have eaten raw tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce in the days before falling ill than women who had not fallen ill.
The scientists used a detailed questionnaire to ask 25 female EHEC patients and 96 women living in the same areas about what they had eaten in the days before the outbreak. Only women were included in the study because they have fallen ill more often than men in the outbreak. "It also strengthened the results of the study, because it meant that we could ignore all sex-specific differences in eating habits," says Gérard Krause, head of the department for infectious diseases epidemiology at RKI.
A statistical analysis revealed that 92 % of the women who had become infected had previously eaten tomatoes. Only about 60% of healthy women had done so. "For something that people eat so frequently, this is a big difference," says RKI expert Klaus Stark. The results for cucumbers and lettuce were similar but slightly smaller. All three results were statistically significant. The experts advised Germans, particularly in the north, not to eat any raw tomatoes, cucumbers, or lettuce until further notice.
That advice remains in place. "It is certainly a possibility that more than one of these foods is responsible," says Reinhard Burger, president of RKI. Scientists also want to be sure that the results from Hamburg are confirmed in another lab.
Spain is Germany’s second biggest supplier of cucumbers within the European Union, sending 179,500 tonnes of the vegetable to Germany in 2009, according to the Federal Office for Agriculture.
HUS and 1,733 sick, then I’d say something.
But Amy’s worried about cucumbers.
probably the worst headline ever. E. coli O104 is not herpes. 
.jpg)
either live in Germany or recently traveled there..jpg)
contaminated at any point along the route.
contaminated at any point along the route.
source of the outbreak. It said 33 Austrian stores were affected..jpg)
following the advice of the Robert Koch Institute and not eating raw cucumbers, lettuce or tomatoes..jpg)
cucumber deliveries while stressing there is no proof that the EHEC entered Germany through Spanish cucumbers..jpg)
80% of the confirmed cases were in females and 45% were in people aged between 15-24 years (range 7 to 53)..jpg)
cucumbers came from two organic producers in Spain. Scientists had speculated in the last few days that manure from infected animals used on an organic farm might have spread the bacteria to vegetables. A fourth sample came from a restaurant, and it was not immediately clear where that cucumber had been grown. After the announcement, stores started taking Spanish cucumbers off the shelves.
be sure that the results from Hamburg are confirmed in another lab.