“Sprouts are kind of a magical thing. That’s why I would advise people to only buy sprouts from someone who has a (food safety) program in place (that includes outside auditors). We did not have (independent auditors) for about one year, and that was the time the problems happened. The FDA determined that unsanitary conditions could have been a potential source of cross-contamination and so we have made a lot of changes since then.”
Independent auditors? Like the ones who said everything was cool, everything was OK, at Peanut Corporation of America (nine dead, 700 sick in 2008-09) and Wright County Egg (2,000 sick in 2010)?
Like the Walkerton E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in 2000, too many are using the filters of their politics to advance their own causes and saying too many dumb things in light of the sprout outbreak of 2011.
It’s really about biology and paying attention to food safety basics—no matter how much that interferes with personal politics.
Reactions to the Outbreak
“Once you see (how E. coli bacteria adhere to the gut), you will never forget it,”
> Dr. Helge Karch, head of Robert Koch Institute’s EHEC consulting lab at the University of Munich
“I don’t know why everyone finds it so attractive to take it out on Spain, on Andalusia and, above all, Almeria.”
> Clara Aguilera, Andalusia’s agricultural minister
“If you gave us 200 cases and five days, we should be able to solve this outbreak.”
> Michael Osterholm, director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota
“If the situation does not change, then we will ban all European vegetable products,”
> Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia’s consumer protection agency
“The cases that we are seeing today are brutal and come on very quickly, and in my opinion this diversity of official structures isn’t suited to it.”
> Hans-Michael Goldmann, head of the German parliament’s consumer affairs committee
“The E. coli and HUS outbreak in Germany is so severe that we have to react very quickly to announce these recommendations (not to eat raw vegetables) and we still can’t give the all-clear.”
> Daniel Bahr, German health minister
“Affected are mostly young women; that is untypical for (enterohemorraghic E. coli). Normally this bacterium affects children and youth. Every year we have cases of EHEC in Bremen, and more than 80% are under 18 years old. It’s very untypical that mostly adults are concerned and predominately women. Also, it’s predominately women who are health conscious.”
> Dr. Werner Wunderle, director of the Bremen Health Authority
“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-0157 STECs.”
> Barbara Kowalcyk, co-founder and CEO of food safety, Center For Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention
“It’s the bean sprouts. It is very satisfying to present this discovery today, to be able to isolate the cause and source of the infection. It is the result of intensive cooperation between German health and food authorities.”
> Reinhard Burger, head of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute
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