sprouts
tsmith | June 10, 2011Via H5N1, German officials are calling it for sprouts:
Germany on Friday blamed sprouts for a bacteria outbreak that has left at least 30 dead and some 3,000 ill, and cost farmers across Europe hundreds of millions in lost sales.
"It's the sprouts," Reinhard Burger, the president of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease centre, told a news conference on the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) in northern Germany.
"People who ate sprouts were found to be nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea or other signs of EHEC infection than those who did not," he said,…
tsmith | June 9, 2011Maryn McKenna has a great update today on the E. coli situation, looking at where we are as far as unanswered questions about the outbreak and the strain. It's been a messy day; more evidence seems to point to the sprout farm, but CIDRAP also notes that another contaminated cucumber was found in the compost bin of a family sickened by the bacterium (this one had the correct serotype--O104), but it's impossible to tell at this point whether the cucumber was the source of that bacterium or it ended up there from one of the sickened family members. Twists and turns abound in this investigation…
tsmith | June 5, 2011The E. coli story is moving quickly. A news report out today suggests that sprouts might be the culprit (though it should be emphasized that the outbreak strain hasn't been isolated from these vegetables yet):
Mr Lindemann said epidemiological studies all seemed to point to the plant nursery in Uelzen in the state of Lower Saxony, about 100km (62m) south of Hamburg - though official tests had not yet shown the presence of the bacteria there.
"Further evidence has emerged which points to a plant nursery in Uelzen as the source of the EHEC cases, or at least one of the sources," he said.
"The…