NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials in the U.S. and Canada on Tuesday told people to avoid eating romaine lettuce because of a new E. coli outbreak.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was working with officials in Canada on the outbreak, which has sickened 32 people in 11 states in the U.S. and 18 people in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
The strain identified is different than the one linked to romaine earlier this year, but it appears similar to one linked to leafy greens last year.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says the agency didn’t have enough information to request suppliers issue a recall, but he said supermarkets and restaurants should withdraw romaine products until the contamination can be identified.
No deaths have been reported, but 13 of the people who became sick in the U.S. were hospitalized. The last reported illness was on Oct. 31.
Tracing the source of contaminated lettuce can be difficult because it’s often repackaged by middlemen, said Sarah Sorscher, deputy director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. That can mean the entire industry becomes implicated in outbreaks, even if not all products are contaminated.
Washing lettuce won’t ensure that contaminated lettuce is safe, Sorscher said.
Most E. coli bacteria are benign but some can cause illness, with symptoms including severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting. Most people recover within a week, but some illnesses can last longer and be more severe.
Umm. who a gave a shit??
At least 13 people did! Though it is a pointless article without any more information or at the very least linking to the CDC’s far more detailed information page with a map of outbreak areas and this piece of highly relevant information:
https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-11-18/index.html
Is this a resumption of the same outbreak from last winter? IIRC, that outbreak was declared over because romaine production shifted to CA from AZ as spring progressed. If we’re back to winter romaine fields again and new cases are being reported again, that’s potentially a huge deal. But none of that context is in this article
You realize that a quite common source of the E. Coli are migrant workers all but forced to defecate in the fields during the harvest…
The Jungle for a new age. You’d think that if simple human decency wasn’t sufficient to mandate paid sick leave for everyone and sanitary latrines for agricultural workers, the desire not to spend a holiday weekend puking your guts out might.
Sadly our collective desire to kick others when they’re down outweighs even cold-bloded self-interest.
edit: I believe that e coli contamination is so wide-spread on cattle ranches now that wild animals often spread it from feedlots to vegetable farms. The Salinas spinach outbreak in 2006 (?) was ultimately blamed on wild pigs. Farmworkers still deserve bathrooms though.