My daughter Megan and I picked an interesting week to travel to Europe. We're in the Netherlands where I'm doing research for my doctorate in environmental health. We were here in the fall of 2010 as well. Unlike last fall, however, we haven't been able to eat raw produce this trip. At one point or another, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and sprouts have been implicated, but none has been confirmed yet as the source (and none may ever be). So, no salads for us or for our friends. In home kitchens and restaurants across Europe, vegetables are being cooked, in response to the tragic E. coli outbreak that has thus far claimed 24 lives and sickened over 2,000 people.
This outbreak is especially concerning given the high rate of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and the fact that so many victims are adult women. HUS in adults is uncommon -- children are at highest risk of developing this serious complication of foodborne illness. It suggests that this is a particular nasty strain of STEC (shiga-toxin producing E. coli). HUS is a horrible disease that is characterized by cascading organ failure and can result, as in my son's case, in death. Those who survive often suffer long-term health effects, including end-stage kidney failure, diabetes and neurological complications.
One of the most troubling aspects of the ongoing outbreak in Europe is that it involves a strain of E. coli that often flies under the radar in the United States. In recent years, public health officials and food safety advocates -- myself included -- have been increasingly concerned about this class of E. coli, which is often referred to as non-O157 STECs.
In fact, numbers released this week by the Centers for Disease Control show that the United States has about the same number of non-O157 STECs as O157:H7 STEC. This means that it is time to change the way we handle these deadly pathogens. In 1994, Mike Taylor declared E. coli O157:H7 to be an adulterant in meat and poultry products when he was Undersecretary of Food Safety at USDA. In recent years, USDA has repeatedly been asked to address this and declare the "Big Six" non-O157 STECs to be adulterants as well, but so far no action has been taken.
Worse, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently ruled that non-O157 STECs in beef products are not economically significant and delayed action on a proposal to declare them adulterants. I'm certain that Germany and Spain would disagree. Given the significant cost associated with STEC infection and its severe long-term health outcomes, these pathogens are clearly economically significant.
In Europe, the cost of this outbreak will likely run into the millions -- if not billions -- when you consider the impact on those sickened, the amount of public health resources used to track the illnesses and find the source, and the lost market share for the cucumber, lettuce, tomato and sprout industries. As this outbreak demonstrates once again, foodborne disease is economically significant -- especially in these hard economic times.
Every time I hear about one of these outbreaks, my heart breaks again for the families affected. I understand their pain and desperately wish that my efforts to improve food safety could have prevented these tragedies. While disheartened, I am all the more determined to prevent this from happening to others. I do not want those sickened to have suffered in vain. I hope their experiences will force the food industry and governments around the world to re-evaluate their food safety systems and move from the current reactive systems to a proactive one. Achieving that will take significant investments in food safety. With the current global economy, it may seem like we can't afford to do that right now, but the reality is that we can't afford not to.
Unfortunately, at a time when people around the globe are focusing on food safety, last week a key Congressional subcommittee proposed significant cuts to the FDA and USDA food safety budgets. If passed through Congress, these budget cuts will make it nearly impossible for FDA to implement the new, higher standards in the recently signed food safety bill or for USDA to take action on non-O157 STECs. The United States will be taking a giant step backwards.
It's always interesting to watch food safety events -- and U.S. politics in general -- unfold from Europe. Last fall, while I began my research project at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, my family watched the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 and endured puzzled questions and disbelief that such solid legislation promoted such strife in the U.S. This time around there are more questions -- largely driven by reports that the United States feels that Europe is mishandling the outbreak investigation. I find this ironic since the U.S. doesn't really look for non-O157 STECs and we have had some highly publicized outbreaks that took months -- not weeks -- to solve.
Epidemiologic investigations are time-consuming and often lead public health officials down many different paths. Of course, the decentralized nature of Germany's public health system -- not unlike many U.S. states -- has not helped the situation. But, regardless of the errors that may have been made, I still think Europe -- especially Denmark and the Netherlands -- is ahead of the curve when it comes to food safety. The United States can learn from their experiences and should follow their lead. We can start by adequately funding food safety and declaring the "Big Six" non-O157 STECs adulterants.
Barbara Kowalcyk is the CEO of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention. She was voted an Ultimate Game Changer in 2010.
Outbreak Investigations | CDC E. coli
CDC | E. coli Outbreak From Fresh Spinach | CDC Foodborne and ...
E. coli outbreak blamed on German veggie sprouts - Yahoo! News
Deadly E. Coli Outbreak Linked to Sprouts From a German Farm ...
Veggie sprouts likely behind E. coli outbreak - Health - Food ...
Is it safe to eat lettuce amid E. coli outbreak? - CNN
E. Coli Outbeak in Europe Is the Deadliest in History - ABC News
So how, exactly, does a bacterial strain come into existence that’s resistant to over a dozen antibiotics in eight different drug classes and features two deadly gene mutations plus ESBL enzyme capabilities?
..While resistance to a single antibiotic is common, the creation of a strain of e.coli that’s resistant to eight different classes of antibiotics — in combination — simply defies the laws of genetic permutation and combination in the wild. Simply put, this superbug e.coli strain could not have been created in the wild. And that leaves only one explanation for where it really came from: the lab.
http://americanbunker.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/european-e-coli-superbug-bioengineered-to-produce-human-fatalities/
“The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any Euroxpean Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.
In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.
"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the Dallas/Fort Worth-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.
In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops
The issue is hospitals where bacteria gain multi-antibiotic resistance
http://www.naturalnews.com/025916_antibiotic_superbug_Amazon.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/10/e-coli-bean-sprouts-blamed
"The breakthrough in the investigation came when a taskforce linked patients who had fallen ill to 26 restaurants and cafeterias that had received produce from the organic farm."
This is not the first time scientist ignored warnings, they said protein was protein regardless of the source. So herbivores were fed animal protein, the result was mad cow disease.
End the CAFO's, you stop producing new superbugs.