Did Organic Farms Cause Germany's E.coli Outbreak?

I don’t know. The E. coli vector was sprouts from an organic farm, but how did the E.coli get in the sprouts?

I am not hoping to stomp on Small, Local or Organic today. I of course feel somewhat vindicated on my stance concerning the supposed clear superiority of these supposedly more “sustainable” methods. As I write this, there is news today that another outbreak has occurred in French Beef.

Yes, cute, protected, smaller scale, non- GMO –fed beef.

It’s not even the same strain of E. coli. So these are two entirely different accidents, but it’s not supposed to happen there, or so say the over-simplifiers among us in the SLO church (Small, Local, Organic).

But really, it could have happened to anyone. Most anyone, anyway. All reports indicated that this particular farm was an exemplar of hygiene that would put many American organic farms to shame.

So, what’s the deal?

First off, if your child gets one of these nasty strains of E. coli, and it also has genes for antibiotic resistance, this is a VERY big deal. It is so tragic. So tragic, that even though I was “safe” in the U.S.A. I wanted to boil everything I gave my daughter.

Yet, when you actually look at the number of cases truly virulent E.coli infection in the developed world, it doesn’t seem so scary at all.

The famous Jack-in-the Box outbreak that the T.V. news magazines had specials on that caused some people to yell that “Our Food System Is Broken!” – how many people died from that outbreak? Do you remember?

Four.

In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in the USA, only about 61 people die a year from E. coli infections from all sources.

That’s all.

“It could have happened to almost anyone you say?” Yes. Just about. Let me explain.

First off, E. coli is not some rare evil germ. Look at your tummy. There are billions of E.coli in there. In fact, they are beneficial to human health, pro-biotic, as they say, so don’t try to get rid of ‘em.

They are generally so beyond benign that they are a favorite for study in various fields of non-medical Microbiology. They are ubiquitous. Residing not only in you, but in your dog and horse. They are also in most farm animals and in species in the wild, and that is where we start to get into trouble.

The Great Thinkers of the Small and Organic movement seized on the very well publicized Jack in the Box outbreak as an opportunity to spread fear not only about health safety standards, but also to malign our entire food system as unsafe. Even the most basic understanding of the Biological systems that produce E. coli would have prevented all but the most cynical from this line of reasoning. Here’s why:

In Evergreen, CO eight children became sick from an E. coli infection that seriously confused local officials until they were all linked to a certain soccer field.

Elk droppings from the mountains were found to have contaminated the field with pathogenic E. coli. It was not because they ate meat that was finished in a big CAFO, and it wasn’t because they bought some cheese from hippies at a Farmers’ Market. It was really a freak accident.

E. coli infections have probably been with us for a very long time. But, long ago, conditions like those found in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle were quite common, partly because we were rather ignorant of the Microbiological factors in disease.

So, if this bug lives in our guts and it is in our dogs and cats, why does it cause disease sometimes? To put it simply: the VAST MAJORITY of E. coli does not cause any harm whatsoever, as I said above. But there are strains that have some bad traits; some E.coli produce toxins that are harmful to humans (but seemingly not to wildlife or livestock.) Also, the little guys need a gene to make a protein that allows them to stick to your gut to be extremely virulent. Worse, E.coli seems particularly adept at developing resistance to antibiotics, so what might have been a nuisance can become a tragedy. Having all three traits means big trouble.

But by far the vast majority of E. coli do not have these traits. And by far the majority of cases do not lead to death.

So, how do people come down with nasty strains of E. coli and what can be done to prevent it. If you listen to your average new urban romantic, the kind that wants everyone to become small scale artisans producing expensive goods for our neighbors, the answer is “by eating a hamburger produced in our awful food system, which may have meat from [X] many cows in it…” but it would seem to make the most sense that you are most likely to get some nasty E. coli from some “raw” milk or cheese, from an organic farmer that composted his manure for less than twelve months (see link to the right for related study).

(The Organic Standard is 90 days)

or a small scale artisan whose very smallness allowed him to slide under the health authorities’ radar (thanks new health safety law!)

In 1996, a small, local butcher in the quaint sounding town of Wishaw, in Lanarkshire, Scotland sold meat that killed 21 people, which was the worst recorded outbreak of pathogenic E. coli, ever.

Was Frontline doing an hour-long special on how small shops are killing us?

No.

Of course not.

Some raw cheese sold by an outfit called “Sally Jackson Cheeses” to Whole Foods caused a four-state pathogenic E. coli outbreak just a few months ago

They were, in fact, a Romantic’s Dream Farm, small and organic:

I’m guessing the Urban consumers who bought the supposedly more healthy and certainly more expensive cheese wrapped in Chestnut leaves felt a little ripped off, much like the folks who believed the world was going to end this year did…

But if you look at this farms’ website, the farm looks wonderful. Perfect. Looking at it, I feel sad that such a place had this accident. Really sad. But this goes to show that for all those people who go out to “Look at the farm” and . . . I don’t know, look the farmer in the eye, make sure he hates the legal entity known as the “corporation” ---doing so is likely useless without bringing various agar broths, petri dishes and polymerase chain reaction kits.

The truth is this: the organic farm that grew sprouts didn’t manufacture the pathogenic E.coli any more than Jack in the Box did. The question is where did the E. coli come from - and – did the food producers follow the rules to prevent an outbreak. No one actually knows for certain WHERE exactly the contaminated meat came from (which beef supplier) in the Jack in the Box outbreak. What was discovered was that the restaurant chain was not cooking its patties to an internal temperature of 155 degrees, the Washington State standard, and was, for taste reasons, only cooking to the FDA standard of 140 degrees.

If the outbreak had occurred elsewhere, they might not have been liable for the deaths.

Same goes with the German sprout farm in the quaint sounding town of Bienenbüttel. No one has likewise figured out how the E. coli got into the sprouts, but it is known well that Sprouts are a very dangerous vector for E. coli, organic or not.

Indeed, the issue is not small farm vs. large farm, organic farm vs. not organic farm,
local farm (but, maybe it is, somewhat.) versus distant farm; it is rather: do the people who supply our food comply with best safety practices? And, are they far from sources of external contamination?

Since beneficial E. coli is ubiquitous in the environment, it would likely be too onerous to close down all operations if some were detected. I am not sure, but I would guess that testing for the dangerous sub-strains of E. coli is rather expensive. Indeed, safety IS expensive, it is just not more costly than tragedy.

The question then becomes, can the people who supply our food afford to comply; can they still make a profit if they are held to a higher standard? In the case of producers and restaurants with large economies of scale, the answer is a resounding “YES!” – but for small producers, well, I just have to trust what their lobbyists told the government when they got exemptions from new food safety laws.

It would no doubt be harder for them, but I’m sure the government and most taxpayers would be glad to have less outfits to inspect.

Perhaps ironically, Jack in The Box (and this is not an endorsement, I’ve never eaten there) is now one of the safest restaurants in America.

They probably hadn’t much choice.

But despite our apparent inability to ensure 100% safety in our food, whether “conventional” or “organic,” far too little testament is ever paid to how SAFE our food systems are in the developed world, especially in the United States. Why? When one person dies, it can become a national news event.

I think two things can be blamed… one is savvy business practices from the organic food industry, who want more market share. The other is the invisible nature of things like E. coli, and radiation. When something is an invisible menace, people become even more fearful, and when children are dying… But, really, even though this is a problem we need to continue working on, more people in the USA die from lightning strikes

Or drown in bathtubs in a year.

The fact that humans are lousy at prioritizing risk is a different subject, and has been extensively written about. But it is worth a mention here. By the way, salmonella (remember that?) is a MUCH bigger killer in the USA.

As are swimming pools.

So, my advice for most of us is to just calm down. You probably should be very careful with hamburger meat and small children. It should be noted though, that “no fast-food hamburger-associated outbreaks have been reported since 1995, demonstrating that changes in the fast-food industry, such as carefully regulating cooking temperature of hamburgers, are both possible and effective.” That’s a quote directly from the CDC. Home cooked hamburger? That’s when you need to be most careful.

You should always thoroughly cook cabbage and sprouts. For the activists among us, I’d suggest they push for higher food safety standards across the board and not just for some producers and not others. Unfortunately, I think tougher standards will hurt the Local food movement the most, at least regarding livestock. Why? Because, and I am no epidemiologist, but from what I’ve read plus a dash of Common Sense suggests to me that the biggest problems with E. coli (along with Bird Flu and other killers) have to do with the intersections with domestic animals with wild animals, and with animals in general and human populations. You see a lot more pathogen infested groundwater in areas like in asia where you’ve got families with 2 cows on the property than you have in towns in Kansas five miles from a CAFO. Right now, towns are relaxing their livestock zoning restrictions due to political pressure nationwide. It might be smart to remember that those particular restrictions were enacted for a reason.

Epilogue:

For those of you who don’t want to believe a word of this, I’ve found the link for you. Apparently, some people think this German Outbreak is all a Big Food plot.

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/weaponized-e-coli-used-to-destroy-organic-foods-a-detective-starts-a-‘food-safety’-investigation/

The author has apparently also never heard of horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. It’s been studied since the 1950s…. Ditto that France has already irradiates a whole bunch of food and they protect small farmers like no bodies’ business.