Ann's Blog On E.coli

Ann's Blog #9:

"Wild Pigs eyed in E.coli outbreak" (cnn.com, October 28, 2006)



The investigation on the E.coli outbreak in spinach of September continues. In the outbreak, three people were killed and over two hundred were sickened. Investigators are working to try and pinpoint the cause of this outbreak. They have found the exact ranch that the bad spinach came from which is four ranches in California. In their research they have found some fragments of the same kind of E.coli in the cattle's manure, thus hinting that the bacteria must have came from the cattle. The question that now puzzles them is that the cattle are kept about one mile away from the field where the contaminated spinach was found, so they are unsure how the E.coli made its way that far. In investigation they studied the water in and around the ranch. They looked at the irrigation, runoff, and flooding of the area. Then they examined the wildlife animals around the spinach field. In looking at that they came across a type of wild pig that could have done the spreading of the bacteria. They are still in the process of examining their manure and other things that could prove that they are the source of the spreading of the E.coli.

Its crazy to me how something happening on California farms could effect people all around America. Even I, in Alexandria, Minnesota, was effected by something that was occurring on only four spinach fields in California. A couple of weeks ago my family and I decided to get some pizza at Pappa Murphy's and we like specialty pizzas and so we wanted to get a type of Medditerean Pizza. Unfortunately, we were told that we couldn't because an ingredient in it was spinach. The next week I wanted to order a salad at Subway, and was told I couldn't get spinach leaves because of the outbreaks. To me this seems like a huge overeaction. Out of all the spinach farms in all of America, only four contained contaminated spinach. And, they were all in the same valley of California. First of all, it effects normal people like me, but it has a huge impact on the farmers of other farms because they are unable to sell their spinach because of paranoia. I feel so bad for those farmers; they can't even get business from a pizza restaurant in Minnesota. To me, it seems overboard. These ranches were punished for the other four ranches problems. Business for them went way down. The punishment should go to the four ranchers that produced the bad spinach. They should be daily testing their spinach and making sure that there are no contaminations. If the pig theory is correct, what are wild pigs doing leaving manure on the fields of the food that Americans eat? When looking for additional information I came across a picture and an article of a boy who died from the bad spinach. The little boy below was two years old, and probably only trying to obey his mommy when she told him to eat his vegetables. Obviously the farmers didn't do the food poisoning on purpose, but deaths like these should be prevented by extra safe procedures on the ranches. That is where there should be overeaction; in the preparation not the after effects. The whole situation should have been prevented, maybe then that cute little boy would be out playing with his play cars, I wouldn't have had to eat sausage pizza for lunch, and the rest of the spinach farms could be prospering.




News Article From:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/10/26/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html
Pig Picture Found On:
http://www.cohsoft.com.au/nature/gallery/p/peccary.jpg
Spinach Picture Found On:
http://www.playfuls.com/bizworld/gimages/spinach22092.jpg
Two Year Old Picture Found On:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2006/10/05/2003291123.jpg
Additional Information Found On:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003291391_spinach06.html