Sludge Watch ==> Spinach Growers warned about product safety last year

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

The San Francisco Chronicle
Spinach growers warned about product safety last year
State, federal officials concerned by 20 reports of tainted greens
- Stacy Finz and Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 19, 2006


Just 10 months before fresh spinach started sending people to the hospital, 
state and federal officials warned Salinas Valley growers and packers to 
clean up their act after a decade of deadly E. coli bacteria breakouts.

In November 2005, the FDA sent a letter to growers, packers, processors and 
shippers warning them to improve produce safety.

"In view of continuing outbreaks," the agency wrote, "we encourage firms to 
consider modifying their operations accordingly to ensure that they are 
taking the appropriate measures to provide a safe product to the consumer."

The recent outbreak is the 20th time in a decade that leafy greens from 
Monterey County have been contaminated by the deadly O157:H7 strain of E. 
coli bacteria. In this instance, a number of the people infected said they 
had eaten packaged fresh spinach. Epidemiologists have since traced the 
spinach to Earthbound Farm's Natural Selection label, which according to the 
company is grown in the Salinas Valley and in neighboring San Benito County.

Investigators haven't been able to determine whether the source of the 
bacteria is in the farms or in the processing plant where the vegetable is 
packaged, but said they are leaning toward the fields.

"We're trying to get to the bottom of this," said Dr. Mark Horton, state 
public health officer for the California Department of Health Services. "But 
we've not been able to identify a smoking gun. A lot more has to be done."

Farmers say they are doing all they can.

"The safety of our products from the farm to the fork is our No. 1 
priority," said Hank Giclas of Western Growers, a trade association that 
represents California farmers, packers and shippers. "We have begun an 
intensive process of examining everything we do to keep the bacteria from 
getting into our products."

The toll of people who have been infected in the recent epidemic has risen 
to 114 people in 21 states, including California, according to the Federal 
Food and Drug Administration. One of those people, a 77-year-old woman from 
Wisconsin, has died, and 18 people have suffered kidney failure.

Horton said he expects more cases will be reported.

Natural Selection has voluntarily recalled all its spinach products and 
River Ranch has pulled its spring mix, which contains Natural Selection's 
spinach. But officials warn that consumers should not eat raw spinach of any 
kind -- even organic. The FDA says spinach is safe to eat after cooking the 
vegetable at 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds. But state health experts 
advise against it.

"If you have something in your refrigerator that's contaminated, you throw 
it out," said Dr. Kevin Reilly of the state health department.

Canned and frozen spinach are safe to eat, according to both agencies.

Inspectors from the FDA and from California health services visited farms in 
Monterey County on Monday evening to take samples and examine the fields for 
possible contamination. Investigators have been running similar tests since 
1995, when the first case of E. coli was reported by people who had gotten 
sick after eating fresh lettuce. But the source of contamination was never 
found.

Attorney William Marler, who has represented a number of families infected 
with E. coli after eating fresh vegetables from the Salinas Valley, said he 
thinks it is more than likely that water is contaminating the crops.

"The common denominator in the other outbreaks was either surface water 
contamination, flooding or irrigation," he said.

All water sources were tested, according to experts, but nothing came back 
positive for the bacteria.

E. coli is spread through mammal fecal matter. Symptoms such as diarrhea, 
cramping and bloody stools typically occur within two to three days of 
exposure, but can take up to a week to manifest.

Healthy adults are more likely to recover from the bacteria, according to 
the FDA. Young children and the elderly are the most vulnerable.

Marler has already filed federal lawsuits against Natural Selection and 
Dole, which sold Natural Selection baby spinach under its own name, in 
Oregon, Wisconsin and Utah on behalf of victims from those states. One of 
his clients, Gwyn Wellborn of Salem, Ore., suffered kidney failure, 
requiring four blood transfusions and eight plasmapheresis exchanges, 
according to the suit.

Samantha Cabaluna, a spokeswoman for Natural Selection, said she wasn't 
aware that lawsuits had been filed. Marty Ordman of Dole said he would not 
discuss the claim pending litigation.

E. coli outbreaks, especially in produce, have become increasingly common in 
the past two or three decades. Experts in the agriculture industry said 
Monday they expect that trend to continue.

The country's centralized food processing system is at least partly to blame 
because produce from one source is distributed all over the country. If just 
one corner of farmland becomes contaminated, bacteria can spread all over 
the United States.

"We don't see this disease in India, Africa, China. We only see it in highly 
technologically advanced countries, and the reason is because of this highly 
centralized food processing system," said Lee Riley, professor of infectious 
disease and epidemiology at UC Berkeley.

The FDA and state health departments need to develop more stringent 
regulations to control the spread of bacteria, experts generally agree. And 
there are precautions that growers and food processors can and should be 
taking -- not allowing potentially contaminated surface water to run onto 
farmland, for example, and aerating land that might be tainted.

But the fact remains, there's only so much a farmer can do to protect a 
crop.

"We're still learning about what we can do to prevent contamination in the 
field,'' said Jenny Scott, a microbiologist and vice president of food 
safety programs for the Food Products Association. "Animals poop in the 
field, we have cattle grazing in the nearby field, we have water runoff. It 
can be very difficult to prevent these outbreaks unless we grow everything 
in a greenhouse, which isn't practical."

Not only are outbreaks difficult to contain, but they're hard to 
investigate. In most outbreaks, government agencies are able to trace the 
bacteria to a specific product, but more often than not, the exact cause of 
the contamination is never known, said Trevor Suslow, a food safety 
researcher in the plant sciences department at UC Davis.

By the time researchers are able to pinpoint a source of contamination, the 
conditions that led to it no longer exist. On the farm, the product has been 
long harvested and the soil dug up and prepped for the next product. In the 
factory, equipment has been cleaned.

The country's major E. coli outbreaks started in the early 1980s in the meat 
processing industry as fast food became especially popular around the 
country and national regulations had trouble keeping up with diet trends, 
Riley said.

Through the 1980s and into the early 1990s, most E. coli outbreaks were in 
meat and dairy products, including a handful of highly publicized outbreaks 
at fast food restaurants. Now, as fresh produce has become increasingly 
mass-processed, more cases are showing up in fruits and vegetables.

And consumers have less control. With meat products, people can cook meat at 
home and kill any bacteria themselves. With produce that is supposed to be 
eaten raw, the only thing consumers can do is wash it -- and with E. coli, 
that's often not enough. The bacterium can hide in leafy green vegetables 
where it's difficult to wash off, and it only takes a very small number of 
E. coli cells -- as few as 10 -- for a person to become sick.

"I don't think that the regulatory agencies are quite on top of how to 
approach produce yet," he said. "They're beginning to address this issue in 
more detail and more closely. They need to institute a more rigorous 
monitoring system, but it's hard. This problem is not going to go away."

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/19/SPINACH.TMP