At least one media outlet is reporting this morning that outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 in southern Ontario have been linked by DNA fingerprinting.
But I’d like to see that confirmed elsewhere.
Dr. Robin Williams, medical officer of Health for Niagara Region, said,
"We are trying to track through the supply and the source of the foods … we’re not just looking at the restaurants (involved) we’re also looking at the cross-link between distributors.”
So far 208 food samples have been taken from those restaurants for analysis
The Little Red Rooster in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., was closed last Friday to let Niagara Region Public Health officials investigate potential sources of contamination. On Tuesday, M.T. Bellies in nearby Welland, Ont., was closed. The number of sick related to these two eateries has climbed to 31, with nine confirmed.
Thursday afternoon, Johnathan’s Family Restaurant of Burlington, Ontario, after the Halton Region Health Department linked several new cases of E. coli O157:H7 to the ’50s-style diner.
Owner Greg Tasoulis told the Toronto Star yesterday he had no option.
"A health department representative came and said `I want you to close the restaurant down.’ … How do they know it doesn’t come from the lettuce I got from our supplier. What if it’s not us? The cost is tremendous to us … over 5,000 people come through here in a week.”
An outbreak at a Harvey’s fast-food restaurant in the central Ontario city of North Bay has led to 237 cases of E. coli O157:H7, of which 46 are laboratory confirmed. At this time there is no link between the southern Ontario outbreak and the North Bay outbreak.
Toronto Globe and Mail columnist John Doyle
Schmidt himself is a fascinating character, self-mythologizing relentlessly and shrewdly. He’s always in a hat or cap and presents himself as an artist. No doubt his little farm is clean and well-run, but when Schmidt and his cabal of celebrity-chef supporters appear together and prattle on about taste and claim to be against "big business," they’re just nitwits. …
Watching Schmidt and his supporters, I was reminded of the one of the phenomena of the Romantic period in Europe – all those pastoral elegies of the 1700s, in which the poet idealizes rustic life, especially the shepherd, for the enjoyment of aristocrats.
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Schmidt’s raw-milk operation may be the most sparkling-clean in all of Ontario. His methods of storage and transport may be beyond reproach. His milk cows may be grass-fed, free-range, pest-free and of above average intelligence. For all we know they may produce wonderful abstract-expressionist paintings in their off hours.
Michael Schmidt has run a co-operative organic dairy farm near Owen Sound, Ont., for more than 20 years.
Included are cases being investigated by 6 other health units in Ontario, and the people who are ill range from 1 to 90 years old. Some are in hospital receiving treatment, while most are recovering at home. 
Aunt Mid’s Produce of Detroit was identified as one of the local suppliers. The company immediately stopped its lettuce distribution, said Philip Riggio, chief executive officer, and had its supply and processing facilities tested by outside experts. The tests found no evidence of contamination.(1)(1).jpg)
It all seems sorta quaint now, what with Google alerts and blogs and RSS feeds, but my goal was straightforward: during the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak, a number of spokesthingies said, they didn’t know E. coli O157:H7 was a risk, they didn’t know that Washington State had raised its recommended final cooking temperature for ground beef, they didn’t know what was going on..jpg)
The Michigan outbreak was first publicly reported on Sept. 16, 2008. Lettuce was identified as the primary suspect on .jpg)
Except for some errant communications bout the female who died.
The 
The health unit has inspected the restaurant twice since the issue first surfaced, said Warshawsky, and deemed it safe to operate. The task now is to determine if the outlet received contaminated food product, or if something happened there.