Tag Archives: Germany

Germany shuts school over E. coli O104 outbreak

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German officials closed a primary school in the west of the country on Tuesday after a number of students fell ill with E.coli O104 responsible for an outbreak that has killed 48 people.

The school in the town of Altenbeken will be shut for a week, about the length of the E. coli incubation period, to prevent a possible spread of the bacteria, local officials said.

So far more than 4,000 people in Europe and North America have been sickened by the bacteria, with all the cases so far traced to travel in, or produce from, northern Germany. The rate of infection has slowed considerably since its climax in May.

Health authorities have pinned the outbreak to contaminated vegetable sprouts and shoots, of the type eaten in salads, from an organic farm near Hamburg.

Health officials responsible for Altenbeken believed poor hygiene by both students and school canteen workers caused the spread of the bacteria, rather than contaminated bean sprouts.

Where did the sprout seeds originate

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As the death toll in the German E. coli O104 outbreak reached 48 and the sick approached 4,000, investigators have provided no clues on a key question: where did the seeds for sprouting originate?

Does anyone know?

"Investigations are ongoing, but the first findings suggest that locally grow sprouts might be involved," the WHO said in a statement Monday of the outbreak. It said that, of eight French cases so far, three of them carried the same bacteria strains as in Germany.

"Intensive traceback is under way to identify a possible common source of the German and French sprout seeds," it added. But "other potential vehicles are also under investigation

There was "no direct supply relationship" between the farm in Germany at the center of the outbreak and the British company, Thompson & Morgan, German spokeswoman Bansbach said.

Paul Hansord, managing director of Thompson & Morgan, said last night that it was “highly unlikely” that seeds supplied by his firm were to blame for the outbreak and insisted he had no plans to recall the products from shops and customers who have already bought them.

Environmental health officers have taken samples of the seeds from the company’s premises in Ipswich, Suffolk, so they can be tested for any trace of the E coli bug. The results are expected within four days.

“We have sold many hundreds of thousands of packets of sprouting seeds to home gardeners for several years without any reported problems.
“In particular we have sold around 100,000 packets of sprouting seeds in France from more than 500 outlets just since last November.

“All of the seeds came from the same batch and have been on sale in France for many months so if there had been a problem with them, we would have expected it to have emerged earlier.”

That’s nice. Where do the seeds come from? And are they circling the globe so that more outbreaks can be expected?
 

Irish say do not eat raw sprouts

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The Food Safety Authority of Ireland gets it right, and said this morning, don’t eat sprouts.

The German outbreak of E. coli O104 that has killed 45 and sickened some 3,800 has now spread to the Bordeaux region of southern France and sickened at least 10 people.

The N.Y. Times reports this morning what food safety types have been saying all along: a common supplier sprout seed might be the ultimate source of the E. coli O104 and if those seeds are still in circulation, other outbreaks could occur.

William E. Keene, a senior epidemiologist at the Oregon Public Health Division, said it was urgent to find out if the seeds used by the German grower had come from the same source as the seeds linked to the French cases.

At least five of the French cases involved kidney failure, and tests on two of those people showed they were infected with the O104:H4 strain. The eight people infected in the Bègles area were adults, age 31 to 78. In addition, two children were sickened in another town and they were presumed also to have E. coli infections, although it was not clear if they had the same strain.

The source of the bean sprouts or the seeds from which they were sprouted is not known at this time and is the subject of ongoing investigation. The implicated bean sprouts are unlikely to have originated in the German organic bean sprout farm as this farm is closed and it is known not to have exported bean sprouts.

This raises the possibility that contaminated seeds are on the market. Therefore as a precautionary measure, and until investigations are concluded, FSAI advises, for the time being that consumers should not to eat raw bean sprouts or other sprouted seeds and caterers should not serve raw bean sprouts or other sprouted seeds.

Who knows what kind of crap is sprouting by your kitchen windowsill or in your herb garden.

Given the number of dead and dying related to this outbreak, the traceback has been an enormous failure.

A table of international sprout outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks.
 

Madeleine Ferrieres on German sprout outbreak: the fear of dying poisoned has been around a long time

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That’s my rough translation.

Madeleine Ferrieres’ 2002 book, Mad Cow Sacred Cow is my favorite food safety book. And she’s French. So that puts me in good with Amy.

As the death toll from E. coli O104 reached 43 in Europe, with 3,688 people sick in Germany, including 823 suffering from hemolytic uremic syndrome and an additional 114 cases in other countries, Madeleine Ferrières, professor of modern history at the University of Avignon told Le Point, “There is a curious game of ping-pong where the consumer discards the health authorities and the authorities send us back to our own behavior.”

That’s fairly astute, even if the translation might be slightly off.

There’s lots of media noise about this new strain of E. coli O104, but no one seems to be asking questions of the farming practices: if this organic sprout farm was the source of the E. coli O104, how did it get there? Was the farm fertilizing with night soil (human crap); was the irrigation water on the farm ever tested; were the seeds contaminated and another outbreak will show up somewhere?

As Ferrieres wrote in her book,

"All human beings before us questioned the contents of their plates. … And we are often too blinded by this amnesia to view our present food situation clearly. This amnesia is very convenient. It allows us to reinvent the past and construct a complaisant, retrospective mythology."
 

2 unusual traits blended in Germany’s E. coli strain

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Gina Kolata of The New York Times writes in tomorrow’s paper that the E. coli O104 that killed 40 people in Germany over the past month have a highly unusual combination of two traits and that may be what made the outbreak among the deadliest in recent history.

One trait was a toxin, called Shiga, that causes severe illness, including bloody diarrhea and, in some patients, kidney failure. The other is the ability of this strain to gather on the surface of an intestinal wall in a dense pattern that looks like a stack of bricks, possibly enhancing the bacteria’s ability to pump the toxin into the body.

With the two traits combined in one strain of E. coli bacteria, “now they are highly virulent,” said Dr. Matthew K. Waldor, an infectious-disease expert at Harvard Medical School who was not connected with the new research.

The new findings, by a team led by Helge Karch of the University of Münster, are being published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases. They result from two days of fevered work to characterize the bacteria causing the illness that raced through Germany in May.

Experts in the United States praised the German scientists’ work. The work and the entire outbreak are “a real game-changer,” said Dr. Philip I. Tarr, a professor of pediatrics and expert in gut infections at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. John Mekalanos of Harvard called the paper “extremely important.”

Dr. Karch, a well-known expert in E. coli, infections, got the first stool samples on May 25. Over the next few days, more and more samples flooded his lab, 50 to 100 a day. “You can’t imagine,” he said.

He isolated the strain that was causing the illness and analyzed it to determine that it was strain O104:H4. Then he began investigating the bacteria’s DNA. First he determined what kind of Shiga toxin it made. Then he did adherence tests and found that the bacteria stuck to surfaces in the bricklike pattern. It is an unmistakable phenomenon: “Once you see it you will never forget it,” Dr. Karch said.
He posted the results and provided detailed information so most labs that had a suspicious stool sample could analyze it immediately and see if the stool contained O104:H4 bacteria. Until he posted that information, most labs would be at a loss. The strain is so rare that there are no standard tests to find it.

Dr. Karch also realized that the O104:H4 strain had been seen before in bloody diarrhea and kidney failure, but only on rare occasions — first in Germany in 2001, then sporadically in a few other countries. And in each outbreak, at most a few people were ill.

Dr. Karch thinks it smoldered in human populations, causing mild illnesses in most and occasionally causing severe disease. Then, somehow, it was passed to the bean sprouts by someone who harbored the bacteria. And since sprouts are eaten raw, they were highly infectious.

He himself does not like sprouts, he says, though his wife does. Aware that sprouts have always been “a high-risk food” for bacterial illnesses, he will not touch them unless they have been cooked.

Sprouts ‘safest produce on the grocery shelf’ sick people disagree

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Most sprouts are grown in a controlled, indoor environment and, when handled properly, “are the safest produce on the grocery shelf.”

So says Bob Rust, who runs International Specialty Supply, a Cookeville, Tenn.-based supplier of sprout seeds and growing equipment.

Rust told The Packer his company tests every bag of seed before selling it to commercial growers and that most U.S. growers “are well-trained in the production of safe sprouts, utilize some of the most stringent safety procedures in the food industry, and have sophisticated systems in place to minimize the likelihood of contamination.”

Except for those two outbreaks in the U.S. earlier this year; or Canada in 2005; or Germany right now. A complete table of international sprout outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks.

The Packer responded in an editorial that U.S. sprout growers can do much more than they’re doing to avoid a situation like in Germany, where E. coli-contaminated organic sprouts killed nearly 40 and caused more than 3,000 illnesses.

U.S. sprout grower-shippers contacted in mid-June told us they’re confident their food safety practices have improved significantly in recent years and that thorough testing reduces the chances of contaminated product reaching the food supply.

However, many critics have pointed out dangerous pathogens are more difficult to eliminate in sprouts through current cleaning processes.

The industry has made no clear move to embrace cleaning alternatives, such as irradiation, or form a group similar to the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, which began in the aftermath of the 2006 spinach E. coli outbreak. It is up to each sprout grower to follow food safety guidelines. That’s risky.

The sprout industry needs to do everything it can to ship safe product and prove it to consumers and fellow produce companies.

At this point, they’re not doing that.
 

Food handler passed E. coli O104 to 20 others in German outbreak

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As the number of sick people in the German E. coli O104 sprout outbreak rose to 3,408, including 798 with hemolytic uremic syndrome and 39 dead, scientists have discovered a kitchen employee at a catering company was unwittingly spreading the germ on food.

Hesse state consumer protection officials said that a woman positive for E. coli O104:H4 but had not yet fallen ill – she later developed HUS — passed it to 20 other people via food she handled.
 

E. coli on Dutch sprouts is new; 39 dead in German E. coli O104 sprout outbreak

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Researchers say a strain of E. coli found last week on Dutch beet sprouts has not been seen before in the country and they have sent samples for further analysis at labs in Italy and Denmark.

The Dutch Food Safety Authority says nobody appears to have been sickened by the strain.

Friday’s announcement came a day after Germany’s disease control center said the death toll in Europe’s outbreak of a separate strain of E. coli had risen to 39 after one more patient died.

The killer strain has been traced to sprouts from an organic farm in a northern German village.


Tragic: 2-year-old dies in German E. coli sprout outbreak

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A two-year-old boy on Tuesday became the first child to die in an outbreak of E. coli O104 in Germany, taking the death toll to at least 37.

Some 3,255 people have also fallen sick in 14 European countries plus the United States and Canada, according to the World Health Organisation. Of those, 782 are seriously ill with hemolytic uremic syndrome.

The agricultural ministry in Lower Saxony said Sunday that it is still not clear how sprouts from a farm in the state became contaminated with the bacteria.

"It is not clear whether an employee brought the bacteria into the company or whether it was brought in with seeds which then contaminated the worker," the ministry said in a statement.
 

Faith-based food safety: sprouts, salads and superstition

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While chatting with Virginia, my hair artiste, during my annual visit yesterday, she asked if I knew anything about that sprout thing.

I said, “It’s one of the few foods I won’t eat.”

“But I love sprouts.”

“OK, that’s your choice. I’m just providing information.”

The media accounts and public health actions surrounding the German-based E. coli O104 outbreak that has killed 33 people and sickened over 3,000 have been abysmal.

Like the Walkerton E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in 2000, too many are using the filters of their own politics to advance their own causes and saying too many dumb things.

It’s really about the biology.

German hospitals are overwhelmed with the 3,100 sick people; more than 700 have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome. In normal times, hospitals need between 500 to 700 portions of blood plasma in 14 days, they used 12,000 portions in the last two weeks.

“Our staffers are used to seeing very severe cases. But to see those young, healthy girls break down from one day to the next, getting cramps and slipping into coma — that’s been the most stressful thing ever.”

Today it was reported, “Around 100 patients have suffered such terrible kidney damage that they will require a transplant or have to undergo dialysis for the rest of their lives.”

We count at least 55 outbreaks related to raw sprouts beginning in the U.K. in 1988, sickening thousands.

The first consumer warning about sprouts was issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 1997.  By July 9, 1999, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had advised all Americans to be aware of the risks associated with eating raw sprouts. Consumers were informed that the best way to control the risk was to not eat raw sprouts. The FDA stated that it would monitor the situation and take any further actions required to protect consumers.

At the time, several Canadian media accounts depicted the U.S. response as panic, quoting Health Canada officials as saying perhaps some were at risk, but that sprouts were generally a low-risk product.

That changed in late 2005, as I was flying back to reunite with this girl I met in Kansas and 750 people in Ontario became sick from raw bean sprouts.

Virginia had heard about the chasing-Amy tale, she knew nothing about the food safety risks with raw sprouts.

That’s normal: what food safety types think passes for common knowledge barely registers as public knowledge. It’s hard to compete against food porn.

Sprouts present a special food safety challenge because the way they are grown — high moisture and high temperature — also happens to be an ideal environment for bacterial growth.

Because of continued outbreaks, the sprout industry, regulatory agencies, and the academic community in the U.S. pooled their efforts in the late 1990s to improve the safety of the product, including the implementation of good manufacturing practices, establishing guidelines for safe sprout production and chemical disinfection of seeds prior to sprouting.

But are such guidelines actually being followed? And is anyone checking? Doubtful.

There’s a Jimmy John’s around the corner from where Virginia cuts my hair. Earlier this year, sprouts served on Jimmy John’s sandwiches supplied by Tiny Greens sickened 140 people with salmonella, primarily in Indiana.

In Jan. 2011, Jimmy John’s owner John Liautaud said his restaurants would be replacing alfalfa sprouts with allegedly easier-cleaned clover sprouts, effective immediately.

This was one week after a separate outbreak of salmonella on sprouts sickened eight people in the U.S. northwest who ate at Jimmy John’s that used clover sprouts.

Virginia said she’d never eat at Jimmy John’s again.

Sprout grower Bill Bagby, the dude who owns Tiny Greens and apparently imagines he has huge cast-iron balls, said in the context of the German outbreak that, for many like him, the nutritional benefits outweigh the risk.

"Sprouts are kind of a magical thing.”

"That’s why I would advise people to only buy sprouts from someone who has a (foodsafety) program in place" that includes outside auditors, Bagby said. "We did not have (independent auditors) for about one year and that was the time the problems happened. The FDA determined that unsanitary conditions could have been a potential source of cross-contamination and so we have made a lot of changes since then."

Independent auditors? Like the ones who said everything was cool, everything was OK, at Peanut Corporation of America (7 dead, 700 sick) and DeCoster eggs (2,000 sick).

But with all the dead and sick and dying related to the German outbreak, why not make a political point.

Like Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute, who suggested that concerned consumers might be better off choosing organic sprouts over non-organic varieties because the majority of outbreaks during the last three years came from conventional farms. Bagby, an organic farmer noted that their inspection process is more rigorous than conventional farms.

Organic is a production standard, not a food safety standard.

It’s not an organic-conventional thing; it’s a sprouts-make-people-barf thing.

Arm-chair epidemiologist and N.Y. Times writer Mark Bittman decided to share his vast food safety knowledge (again) in a June 7/11 piece titled, Don’t blame the sprouts, in which he decided to use the German outbreak to advance the cause of grass-fed beef.

It goes back to biology.

E. coli O157:H7 and its cousins are generally found in about 10 per cent of ruminants – cows, sheep, goats, deer. There are outbreaks of human disease related to all; the U.S. happens to have more cattle than other ruminants. There’s a lot of dangerous E. coli out there. But there are some basics when people start getting sick.

“I’m just staggered,” said William E. Keene, a senior epidemiologist of the Oregon Public Health Division. “This is basic outbreak investigation 101. This is on the high end of suspect vehicles. You always rule out raw milk, you always rule out ground beef, you always rule out sprouts. It just happens in the beginning steps.”

Virginia told me I had some mullet action going on and it had to go.

And she’d reconsider sprouts.

An updated table of international sprout-related outbreaks is available at :?http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks?