THE FDA HAS IDENTIFIED THE LOVING, CARING SKY PIXIE AS THE SOURCE OF THE
ECOLI.
WHY IS THE CHRISTIAN GOD SUCH A COLD-HEARTED ***** ?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/09/15/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration said late Friday that an
E. coli outbreak had been linked to bagged spinach products distributed by
Natural Selection Foods/Earthbound Farm, based in San Juan Bautista,
California.
The company has agreed to recall its bagged spinach products.
"It is possible that the recall and the information will extend beyond
Natural Selection Foods and involve other brands and other companies, at
other dates," said Dr. David Acheson, the chief medical officer with the
FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
The news came hours after federal health officials warned consumers that
even if you wash the spinach, you still could be at risk.
Sober warnings for salad lovers came from federal health officials Friday as
they struggled to pinpoint a multistate E. coli outbreak that killed one
person and sickened nearly 100 more.
Bagged spinach -- the triple-washed, cello-packed kind sold by the hundreds
of millions of pounds each year -- is the suspected source of the bacterial
outbreak, Food and Drug Administration officials said.
The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get
rid of the tenacious bug, though thorough cooking can kill it. Supermarkets
across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the
leafy green. (Watch CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explain why this advisory is
significant -- 2:07)
"We're waiting for the all-clear," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of
preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University. The Tennessee university's
medical center was treating a 17-year-old Kentucky girl for E. coli
infection.
By Friday, the outbreak had grown to include at least 20 states: California,
Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New
Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah,
Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
Wisconsin accounted for 29 illnesses, about one-third of the cases,
including the lone death.
"We are telling everyone to get rid of fresh bagged spinach right now. Don't
assume anything is over," Gov. Jim Doyle said.
The bug has sickened at least 94 people across the nation, the CDC said. The
agency added that 29 people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney
failure.
FDA officials said they issued the nationwide consumer alert without waiting
to identify the still-unknown source of the tainted spinach.
"Early is good," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the
Center for Science in the Public Interest, adding that the alert may have
prevented hundreds more cases. (Watch how health officials are scrambling --
1:11)
Better safe than sorry
An industry spokeswoman said public health concerns justified the blanket
warning: "It needed to happen this way," said Kathy Means, a spokeswoman for
the Produce Marketing Association. "Public health has to trump economics at
this time."
Initial suspicions focused on California's Monterey County. Farmers there
grow more than half the nation's 500 million-pound spinach crop, according
to the Agriculture Department.
"We're trying to get to the bottom of this and figure out what happened.
Everybody is terribly concerned," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the
California Farm Bureau Federation.
Even before the latest outbreak, a joint state and federal effort has been
under way in the California county to find and eliminate any possible
sources of E. coli contamination.
"We need to strive to do even better so even one life is not lost," said Dr.
Andrew von Eschenbach, FDA's acting commissioner.
The FDA's top food expert stressed the importance of stopping the bacterium
at its source, since rinsing spinach won't eliminate the risk. "If you wash
it, it is not going to get rid of it," said Robert Brackett, director of the
agency's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition.
Messages left with two major bagged vegetable producers, Dole Food Co. Inc.,
of Westlake Village, California, and Ready Pac Produce Inc., based in
Irwindale, California, were not immediately returned Friday.
E. coli lives in the intestines of cattle and other animals and typically is
spread through contamination by fecal material. Brackett said the use of
manure as a fertilizer for produce typically consumed raw, such as spinach,
is not in keeping with good agricultural practices. "It is something we
don't want to see," he told a food policy conference.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Safeway Inc., SuperValu Inc. and other
major grocery chains stopped selling spinach, removing it from shelves and
salad bars.
"We pulled everything that we have spinach in," said Dan Brettelle, manager
of a Piggly Wiggly store in Columbia, South Carolina.
Local doctors began seeing the first of the ongoing E. coli poisoning cases
in late August. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Wisconsin
health officials alerted the FDA about the outbreak at midweek.
Call for reform
Consumer activist Barb Kowalcyk said fixing the nation's "fractured network"
of food safety agencies could save lives. In 2001, her 2-year-old son,
Kevin, died of E. coli, possibly after eating tainted ground beef.
"How can we improve communication between agencies? That needs to happen,"
the Loveland, Ohio, resident said.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, and other lawmakers seek a hearing on
legislation that would consolidate all federal food safety agencies and
establish the Food Safety Administration, her spokeswoman said. Staff
members of the House Energy and Commerce committee will examine the
situation and current government policy, deputy staff director Larry Neal
said.
Not all strains of E. coli cause illness: E. coli O157:H7, the strain
involved in the current outbreak, was first recognized as a cause of illness
in 1982. That strain causes an estimated 73,000 cases of infection,
including 61 deaths, each year in the United States, according to the CDC.
When ingested, the bug can cause diarrhea, often with bloody stools. Most
healthy adults can recover completely within a week, although some people --
including the very young and old -- can develop a form of kidney failure
that often leads to death.
Sources of the bacterium include uncooked produce, raw milk, unpasteurized
juice, contaminated water and meat, especially undercooked or raw hamburger.
Anyone who has gotten sick after eating raw packaged spinach should contact
a doctor, officials said. Other bagged vegetables, including prepackaged
salads, apparently are not affected.
"At this point, we are focused on the issue of the spinach. As we learn
more, as we go further, we will alter or change that recommendation," von
Eschenbach said.
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