Illness in E. coli Lab Worker Prompts Warning
By Kathy Will
A laboratory worker who handles E. coli bacteria at North Dakota State University (NDSU) is suffering from a gastrointestinal illness that could possibly be caused by E. coli.
Tests are pending, but as a precaution, the university has issued an email alert to staff and students warning them to be extra careful with hygiene and the promptly report any diarrheal illness they may contract. The natural concern is to protect against a person-to-person E. coli outbreak..
According to the Fargo Forum, the NDSU E. coli scientist who is ill works in the university’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering. A university spokeswoman did not specify Friday whether the employee was working with E. coli O157:H7, E. coli 0111 or some other type of the bacteria. E. coli O157:H7 and E. coli 0111 are among the type that produce a Shiga toxin that can lead to a serious complication known a Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, or E. coli HUS.
Young children, the elderly and people who have weakened immune systems are most susceptiple to HUS, which is the leading cause of E. coli deaths. Most cases are contracted from eating food contaminated with E. coli, but person-to-person transmission is an important way the bacteria can be spread.
U.S. Senate Poised to Take up Food Safety Reform.
By Fred Pritzker
Escherichia coli O157:H7 is an enteric pathogen that can cause life threatening hemorrhagic colitis and, in very severe cases, hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS.
In the United States every year, an estimated 70,000 to 73,000 people are infected by the bacteria, which produces a toxin that attacks red blood cells and can often lead to E. coli renal failure.
E. coli O157:H7 and HUS E. coli kills on average 61 Americans a year, but there is no known cure for the disease and it is still considered the most lethal of foodborne illness types. It usually is most devastating to small children and the elderly, but it is destructive enough to claim the lives of health adults.
Right now there is a 4-year-old child in South Carolina who is in a partially paralyzed state from suffering a stroke. That child, according to the Washington Post, is one of the 80 people in 31 states to have been sickened in the Nestle cookie dough E. coli O157:H7 outbreak of 2009.
The cookie dough outbreak is fresh on the minds of Congress, which is poised this fall when the session reconvenes to make historic changes in the way we protect our food. The Senate will take up food safety reform and hopefully pass a bill that makes a difference for consumers who are weary of large, multi-state outbreaks of Salmonella in peanut butter, E. coli O157:H7 in leafy greens and Salmonella in pistachios.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, gave an indication of the mood in Washington this week when he spoke at Drake University in his home state.
“We can’t put it off,”Harkin said. “It is past time to modernize U.S. food safety laws and regulations.”
Earlier this year, the House passed a sweeping new food safety bill that would expand the oversight and enforcement power of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The House bill, steered by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, also has a mechanism to fund more inspections by taxing food producers once a year. Once the Senate passes its own version of a food safety law, the two chambers will hash out their differences in conference committee. The hope is to lay new legislation by the end of this year on the desk of President Obama — who has made food safety an early priority of his administration.
As part of the hearings that led up to the House bill, a client of national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen attorneys testified in Washington about the death of his mother. Jeffrey Almer told a packed hearing room that peanut butter contaminated with Salmonella Typhimurium .accomplished something that two bouts of cancer couldn’t : it killed his mother, Shirley Mae Almer, who was a vibrant businesswoman and loving, active grandmother who lived in northern Minnesota.
The Almer family and too many other families like them will be watching what the Senate creates and what compromises are struck to pass new legislation that can bring meaningful change.
Raw Milk E. coli Outbreak Revisited
By Kathy Will
In southeastern Wisconsin, officials are investigating a Campylobacter jejuni outbreak linked to contaminated raw milk. At least 13 people have been sickened and the state health department is reminding people that sale of unpasteurized milk is illegal in Wisconsin. The law exists to protect public health.
A classic case of raw milk food poisoning that created a lot of awareness about the danger of raw milk involved E. coli O157:H7 and a cow share program in Woodland, Washington.
A study of the 2005 raw milk E. coli outbreak said the scientific discovery of the outbreak’s source helped initiate legislative reform in the Washington Legislature regarding cow-share programs.
According to a recap of the outbreak by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the outbreak started in December 2005 with an unusually high number of E. coli O157:H7 cases in Clark County.
Eventually, 18 cases were discovered, at least nine of whom were children. Of those nine, five were hospitalized and four developed E. coli HUS, or Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, the leading cause of E. coli death. The outbreak strain of E. coli was traced to milk at a dairy in Woodland, which at first refused to cooperate with the investigation. It took a court order to obtain the dairy’s list of cow-share owners.
It turned out that all victims of the outbreak had consumed unpasteurized milk from the dairy. During inspections at the farm, the Washington State Department of Agriculture noted mud and manure accumulation in the entrance of the milking parlor on rubber mats covering the dirt floor. The bucket used for collection of the milk had direct contact with these surfaces, the investigators found. Inspectors also found inadequate hand washing and improper cleaning of milking equipment.
Every year in the U.S., E. coli O157:H7 sickens about 73,000 people and up to 15 percent of them end up with HUS, which can lead to high blood pressure, kidney failure, seizures, headaches and neuropathies.
For more information about food poisoning and raw milk, contact an E. coli lawyer at food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen attorneys.
Beef Hides Studied in E. coli HUS Poisoning
By Kathy Will
The latest USDA figures show that the national cost of foodborne illness outbreaks adds up to tens of billions of dollars a year in lost income, medical costs, productivity and long-term illnesses such as meningitis or E. coli kidney failure.
It’s a huge, complicated problem that defies its simple origins: animal poop. In the case of beef-related outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 or Salmonella, the cattle often carry it into the slaughter plants on their hides.
The issue is well-explained in a 2007 E. coli study by scientists at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. They studied the hides of cull cows, bulls and dairy cattle in four geographic areas of the U.S. and found that only four percent of hides had neither E. coli O157:H7 nor Salmonella embedded in them (from contact with their own manure) as they entered the slaughterhouse. The researchers studied cull cattle because the group represents 15 percent of the total U.S. beef supply and a majority of it is marketed as ground beef, which carries a higher risk of HUS E. coli infection for consumers.
Based on these results and previous scientific studies that have found a strong correlation between hide contamination and carcass contamination, it’s tempting to guess that dirty hides may have caused two major beef recalls this summer. The JBS Swift E. coli outbreak involved a recall of 400,000 pounds of ground beef while the Cargill Beef Packers Salmonella outbreak involved a recall of 825,769 pounds of ground beef.
National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen attorneys is still accepting cases from these outbreaks and a food poisoning attorney at the firm can be reached at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free).
According to the study, the prevalence of Salmonella on hides before evisceration was 89.6 percent. The average prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 was 46.9 percent. Exactly one-third of hides were contaminated with both pathogens. Intervention protocols were more effective on reducing Salmonella than E. coli.
Researchers swabbed the hides in search of bacteria. They repeated the tests on the same hides after plant workers did routine intervention work. The study said some plants clearly did a better job than others at intervention.
E. coli Lawyer Speaks at Food Safety Conference
By Brendan Flaherty
E. coli lawyers like Elliot Olsen are most often at odds with food producers, including growers and marketers of fresh produce.
Olsen represents victims of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and other food poisoning incidents that are caused by preventable contamination of vegetables, meat, legumes, fruit and such processed foods as refrigerated Nestle cookie dough or peanut butter.
But at a one-day food safety symposium today in Austin, Texas, Olsen was an invited guest of the Produce Marketing Association. His job was to speak on food safety gaps found at food companies — some hazardous enough to cause the demise of a firm within 24 hours of an investigation linking a producer’s food to a lethal outbreak.
Olsen, a principal at the nationally known firm of PritzkerOlsen, P.A., told the gathering of executives that far too often food companies underestimate the damage an outbreak of E. coli or some other pathogen can do to their business. As a result, it’s not uncommon for a problem to be handled poorly by low-level managers before upper management is even aware of the situation. Olsen urged senior executives to get closely involved in food safety and any potential outbreaks of food poisoning that are identified.
Olsen’s firm is currently representing E. coli victims, including those who have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUB, a severe complication of E. coli that can cause death or life-long health issues. He emphasized the human cost of food safety negligence by describing the personal struggles of some past clients without revealing their names. For example, he spoke of one man who was a vibrant 80-year-old retiree before he became infected with Listeria, which paralyzed him. After spending 400 days in a nursing home, he died.
“It’s not just a game to us,” Olsen said. “Part of our mission is prevention.”
Olsen stressed the importance of working toward elimination of foodborne illness. He said companies learn valuable lessons when victims assert their rights to E. coli compensation for injuries, lost wages, pain and suffering.
It was Olsen’s second speech to members of the Produce Marketing Association. The first came last month at a larger food safety conference in Monterey, California. The organization also has asked him to speak at an upcoming symposium in Rochester, New York.
For more information or to reach Mr. Olsen, call PritzkerOlsen law firm at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free).
80 Illnesses in Nestle Cookie Dough Outbreak
By Kathy Will
Federal E. coli investigators are still warning consumers not to eat Nestle cookie dough products unless the packages are printed with the emblem “New Batch.”
In its fifth and final update on the major Nestle cookie dough outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 80 inviduals in 31 states contracted the same strain of E. coli O157:H7. Most of the victims said they ate Nestle Toll House cookie dough — uncooked — before they fell ill.
According to the CDC, 35 outbreak victims were hospitalized and 10 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a severe complication that attacks red blood cells and damages a person’s kidneys and other internal body parts. While there have been no deaths in this outbreak, E. coli O157:H7 infections can be life-threatening to young children, the elderly and other people who have weakened immune systems.
There has been no microbiological smoking gun in the Nestle outbreak because a positive E. coli O157:H7 test result in a package of dough seized by investigators at the Nestle plant in Danville, Virginia, did not match the molecular fingerprint of the outbreak strain. But there is a strong epidemiological connection between the illnesses and prior consumption of raw cookie dough.
National food poisoning law firm Pritzker Olsen is currently representing E. coli victims, including some who developed HUS. If you or a loved one are among those who have a confirmed case of E. coli, or if you have recently become ill with symptoms of E. coli after eating old Nestle cookie dough, contact us at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free). To receive a free case consultation via the Internet,
