E. Coli: Woman Paralyzed After Severe Food Poisoning; The Unsafe System, Meat

The New York Times:

Stephanie Smith, a children's dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that firstday, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed...

Ms. Smith's reaction to the virulent strain of E. coli was extreme, but tracing the story of her burger, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[Progressiveama]

02:24 AM on 10/09/2009

when what I eat causes the death of a living being that has a brain, a face, feelings, I am bringing whatever happens upon myself....the warnings are everywhere and the plea for compassion to other living beings has been out there for a long long time.

[hsr0601]

10:39 AM on 10/06/2009

1. Provided the average temperature is getting higher, accordingly all forms of germs, viruses, and influenza etc are more likely to multiply.

Some skeptics say the warning against hazards of climate change is overstated, but judging from more frequent and widespread outbreaks of e. coli, salmonella, and bird, swine flu cases endangering human lives and economic recovery seriously, some prompt measures need to be taken, I guess.



2. I personally recognize that wheat is a far better diet than meat on the ground it normally exits body with ease and rapidity, and we are well aware that our heath depends upon smooth metabolism and blood stream associated with the immune system and how important our daily workout is, as well.

I still think the critical conditions mostly come from breach of our immune system, and the food that stays long in the body is more likely to become a source where germs, bacterias and the like multiply.
Sounds outlandish, but wheat might be a principal "clean and healthy" food that has led western society to the most decent culture of all.

[Roguer]

09:32 AM on 10/06/2009

OK. Let's say, for the sake of argument, a cow had this bacteria in its system and it was given fed antibiotics. If the bacteria is resistant to antibiotics, obviously the fed antibiotics would have no effect on it. Thus the cow would have been suffering from symptoms, paralyzed, possibly death because the drugs available for animal use are not nearly as strong as the ones approved for use in humans. It is very unlikely the cow would have made it to be slaughtered in the first place.

However, just suppose that the facility was reasonably clean and they made up the difference with industrial strength, antibiotic cleaners. Is it not possible the resistant strain of E-Coli originated from the processing facility.

While I am opposed to factory farms and corporate food production. The fact remains that farmers are required to produce more and more food on less and less land due to an ever increasing population and urban sprawl. This country looses 90 acres a minute to development. The responsibility for this lies with the consumer, the people who buy houses in the suburbs, and shop at giant department stores. The state of our food supply is a direct result of choices made by the consumer.

[ScottWynn]

03:30 AM on 10/06/2009

To all the meat addicts, your days are over real soon. A veg society is forming now. :D

[Roguer]

09:41 AM on 10/06/2009

So I might assume that all the knee jerk reactions and cries that one should go veg also applies to the peanut industry, the tomato industry, the cookie dough industry, the pepper industry. I assume you have cut these from your diet as well.

Food born diseases result not from the product going into the processing facility by rather from the mishandling of the food during processing.

I would suggest that you aim your discontent at the real culprit and save the "go veg" battle cry.

[grn1]

10:31 AM on 10/08/2009

Food born diseases result not from the product going into the processing facility by rather from the mishandling of the food during processing.

Where did you get this idea. Contamination due to genetically engineered agriculture has happened on wide scale numerous times. Recalled when feasible, fast-tracked when it would destroy markets, and never labeled here in the states so the self policing industry cannot record health impact.

[thundermummy]

11:48 AM on 10/06/2009

Give me a hit of that.

[grn1]

10:32 AM on 10/08/2009

zuchinni or cucumber?

[laucarlson]

09:42 PM on 10/05/2009

The problem is bigger than the tainted food supply, this is also about antibiotic resistant microbes, such as this form of E. coli, that doesn't respond to medications. Too much use of antibiotics in agriculture and this is where we end up.

[BebeLush]

05:19 PM on 10/05/2009

See the movie Food, Inc. for more information on farm factories. They're an abomination! And if some of you insist on eating meat, either raise the animals yourself, or be sure they are organically raised and grass fed.

[robbyJ]

09:35 PM on 10/05/2009

grass fed is the most important to me.

Unhealthy animals mean unhealthy eaters.

[condor101]

05:05 PM on 10/05/2009

Very sad for this innocent young woman. Her vibrant life was taken away.
After seeing that video, I will NEVER buy hamburger meat again; Not regular hamburger, not Turkey burger, not chicken burgers.....nothing. I'm starting a vegetarian diet and if i do eat meat sometimes, then I'll buy steaks from the local butcher. But Never will I buy ground meat again.

All the CEO's from those meat food processors in this article should be arrested and go to prison for their criminal actions against humanity. Greedy SOB's.

[FZliveson]

06:06 PM on 10/05/2009

Condor101:
Don't read about how vegetables are processed.
Don't read about Monsanto
The simple fact is that the young woman ate meat that was under-cooked or cross-contaminated by improper handling in the kitchen where it was prepared. There is a lot of blame to go around and you seem to be reacting heavily on a very emotional video that was not 100% honest with the facts.
Sure it is horrible this woman lost so much. The U.S.D.A., the grocery store, the meat packers and congress are all equally as much "at fault" for this extremely rare occurrence.

[hwalker7]

10:13 PM on 10/05/2009

The simple fact is that just 20 years ago, it was not an issue in terms of under-cooked or cross-contamination when preparing hamburger. Remember the times when some people would choose to have their hamburgers medium-rare with no untoward effects.

Since the late 80s, early 90s, we have found out the hard way that the choice for a medium-rare hamburger is no longer an option. The way we "manufacture" our food-- especially meat- has undeniably gotten worse. I think one day we will create some bizarre organism that even cooking won't kill. Oh, that's right. We already have it. Prions!!!

[cucumber]

11:00 PM on 10/05/2009

are you a mc donald's rep?

[smj32]

02:56 PM on 10/05/2009

From my experience inspections of restaurants and grocery stores are more thorough than factories. I worked in a grocery store bakery and we got written up for having a can of WD-40 in a drawer that wasn't even near the food prep area. Another time we got written up for having heavy water spots on our metal sink.
Later I worked at a pizza crust factory, and I swear the underneath of my car is cleaner. Most of the time we only did "clean up" once a month which mainly consisted of scrubbing the floors. Yes, the floors were swept every night, but no mopping or scrubbing for weeks at a time. Some of the belts that the pizza crusts traveled on were so coated with black, old oil that I thought they were rubberized. One of the belts was replaced. I realized the belt was metal not rubberized. Mice roamed freely and were regularly seen running on the conveyor belts with the food. Mouse dropping were all over in the dry storage area. This company never failed an inspection while I worked there. I wish I had a video to post on the internet because people would think it was a factory in some third-world country, but it is in Oregon. They make frozen pizza crusts for schools, prisons, restaurants, and other suppliers. YUM!

[CaptainFailmore]

06:08 PM on 10/05/2009

The greatest weakness of our food safety strategy is that does the complete opposite of what it needs to do. Instead of targeting the largest producers with the largest market shares, who in turn potentially endanger the largest number of consumers, attention is instead focused on the smallest producers who potentially endanger the fewest. What regulations we do have at our disposal which could curtail the prevalence of factory conditions like those you described are, as the article neatly outlines, barely enforced if at all.

What was the pizza crust company's name, by the way?

[hwalker7]

10:21 PM on 10/05/2009

It is not too uncommon for slaughterhouses to have rats, roaches, flies, and maggots. Read the book: "Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry", Gail A. Eisnitz

[CaptainFailmore]

01:42 PM on 10/05/2009

"In the weeks before Ms. Smith’s patty was made, federal inspectors had repeatedly found that Cargill was violating its own safety procedures in handling ground beef, but they imposed no fines or sanctions, records show. After the outbreak, the department threatened to withhold the seal of approval that declares “U.S. Inspected and Passed by the Department of Agriculture.”

I'm sure they were just quaking in their boots.

The FDA is toothless.

[ResidualSelfImage]

01:05 PM on 10/05/2009

When a meat processing plant has two DEFINITE cases of contamination shut it down.
This will cause smaller meat packing plants to survive.

As for me I prefer grass-fed beef.

[robbyJ]

09:38 PM on 10/05/2009

Grass fed tastes much better anyway.

[regulargal]

12:48 PM on 10/05/2009

I know people who prefer never to "pollute" their system with simple headache and cold medications, yet they must have their antibiotic and hormone infused, possibly contaminated, meat everyday.

Doesn't make sense.

Go Veg!

[DandaPanda]

01:19 PM on 10/05/2009

exactly go veg go vegan...

[thundermummy]

11:51 AM on 10/06/2009

No way. And risk getting E. coli from spinach, lettuce, strawberries etc? Go foodless. It only makes sense.

[AntiClast]

12:09 PM on 10/05/2009

This is why I don't buy supermarket hamburger any more. I buy a small amount from a local farmer, I guess it's mainly grass fed, because it tastes much better.

No wonder the supermarket crap has no flavor! They add bread crumbs and odd fats and beat up the meat until it's lost flavor. When I was a kid, the butcher at the supermarket ground the meat fresh in front of you. Then it got cheaper to pack the meat in central facilities elsewhere in the country. Also they could get cheap unskilled nonunionized labor. So the butchers disappeared from the supermarket. And so did this meat customer.

Think the meat industry will sue the NYT the way they did Oprah?

[cucumber]

11:05 PM on 10/05/2009

all that de_ath for a taste sensation.

[iScan]

11:56 AM on 10/05/2009

I limited my ground beef eating to only 2-3 times a month for reasons like this.

We are building bacteria up to unseen levels of strength with the way we factory farm our meat. It is allowed to grow and grow until the meds we give our livestock no longer work, and then we give it stronger meds which in turn makes even stronger bacteria.

We wouldn't have to do this if less people ate meat every day of the week, we would simply have less demand for it so it wouldn't have to be made in such huge amounts, which leads to cutting corners. I mean, it's just not necessary and just because we can doesn't mean we should. That and we are all hamsters in an experiment to see what happens after you feed people antibiotic and hormone laced meat for a couple generations straight while at the same time sneaking gmo's into everything else they eat and drink, including the food that the livestock ate.

Anyways, try moderation, meatless Mondays, whatever. Just chill out on the beef meat a little more before we drown ourselves in super-strength bacteria and before we are all breathing methane.

[CanisLatrans]

09:22 AM on 10/05/2009

Yes, I am aware that there is a very motivated, vigorous segment of the population that is currently engaged in a "war on meat" but do we have to lend credence to that? The problem is the lack of regulation, cuts in safety, and an understaffed FDA that isn't allowed to do their jobs by money-grubbing corporations that burn up people for profits. That is where the real problem lies.

ANY food is potentially dangerous, the more so as we get further and further from understanding the source and process of our own foods.

[Brendan H]

10:10 AM on 10/05/2009

Meat is only affordable by the average person because of how dirty the industry is. It's the cut corners that allow the meat to be so obtainable. If the industry was properly regulated and couldn't pump the cows full of antibiotics and hormones, the price of meat would SKYROCKET. On top of that if the cows had to be fed a grass diet, the amount of grazing land needed and personnel to work that land would drastically cut the supply of meat. This is not 200 years ago. The farmer to other job ratio is not even remotely what it was back then.

Properly raising livestock is very, very expensive and the only reason we can get grass fed, properly raised beef for relatively cheap right now is that the processed meat offsets the demand for it. Remove that supply of meat and the prices will fly up.

If we really took the steps necessary to handle this industry, this industry would collapse. There is absolutely no way to keep up with demand in a world without factory farming. The end result is that meat becomes a delicacy that most people cannot afford to eat very often. This entire establishment is built on cut corners, skimming everything you can, and doing it as fast and cheap as possible. All of those things save money, not just for corporations, but for consumers.

[SelenicMagick]

10:59 AM on 10/05/2009

For some of us there's an area called "between the devil and the deep blue sea". We have a choice of affordable but treated with antibiotics & swimming in pathogens or either growing it ourselves (which most people don't have the land necessary to do) or buying from butcher shops and stores that don't rely on factory farmed meat.

The amount of antibiotics used both before and after processing is high enough so that those of us who are allergic to antibiotics have our lives threatened *every* time that we eat meat that comes from a store because NO amount of cooking gets rid of the antibiotics.

[Roguer]

05:40 PM on 10/05/2009

While I would agree that we have become used to cheap grocery prices for corporate produced food, I would argue that good quality pastured grass fed beef is available and in some cases very reasonably.

With a little effort a consumer can find these sources. Buying cheap is never a good solution whether you are buying a tool, a car, a piece of jewelry, and most importantly food.

For example, the beef I raise and direct market is hormone, antibiotic, pesticide, herbicide free. Butchered locally at a family run, humane certified facility. There are three inspectors on hand. USDA pulls a sample and the butcher pulls their own sample for testing for food born diseases.

Guess what. 85 % lean ground beef is $3 a pound.

[condor101]

05:08 PM on 10/05/2009

Are you willing to risk your life and the lives of your family on ground hamburger meat?
If it happened to her, it could happen to anyone.
For me, it's not worth the risk. Health is much more important than the taste of some hamburger.

[FZliveson]

06:24 PM on 10/05/2009

Condor101...Do you think that e.Coli 0157: H7 is the only vector for food-borne illness?
There are many kinds of hazards in food.
Why there's listeria monocytogenes, campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella, Clostridium Perfringens, Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes ,Shigella spp.
Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus, Vibrio cholerae, including O1 and non-O1
Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus
Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis
Occurring less commonly are:
Brucella spp., Corynebacterium ulcerans, Coxiella burnetii or Q fever and
Plesiomonas shigelloides
Then there are the exotoxins, which have toxic byproducts. These are many.

Note: In the United Kingdom during 2000 the individual bacteria involved in reported food borne illneses were as follows: Campylobacter jejuni 77.3%, Salmonella 20.9%, Escherichia coli O157:H7 1.4%, and all others less than 0.1% Note that e.Coli were only 1.4%.

We all ought to be far more worried about automobile transportation and being a pedestrian.

[CanisLatrans]

01:21 PM on 10/06/2009

Remember that massive E.coli contaminations that hit from lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers in the last few years? More people are dead from contaminated vegetables than this woman's (unfortunate) paralysis at the hands of poorly-handled beef.

There is no "100% safe" food. Not as long as we are willing to put up with the factory bred farming situation. I'd be willing to let meat get a little more expensive if it meant safer chow all around, and while I love the taste and will not give it up, I don't eat meat every day.

[techjockey]

11:20 PM on 10/04/2009

The problem here is the de-regulation of slaughterhouses during the Bush 1 years in the late '80
's. Before that, there was a veterinarian at the end of each slaughter line who examined the entrails on a table before the carcass was passed on. If there were signs of: worms, cysts, perforation, etc. the line was stopped & everything from the lot (they were done individually from pens of 25) was stepped back for at least a week. The line was sterilized, & the product was incinerated several animals forward.
NONE of this happens now. It was all cancelled with a stoke of a pen. Now the slaughterhouses are put out if a veterinarian/inspector visits once a month.
The huge uptick in foodborne illnesses started soon thereafter, & not in the beef industry alone.