Health Law

Report on 2006 Spinach E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak in Wisconsin, the Counted and the Not-Counted

By Marler Clark

This month's issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases has an excellent article recounting the State of Wisconsin's investigation into the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to Dole spinach.   You can see the article here.    For reasons that are still not entirely clear, Wisconsin was something of a "ground zero" for the outbreak with 49 of the 204 cases reported nationwide.  Strong work by health officials in Wisconsin (and elsewhere) helped recognize the outbreak and put a stop to it.

Despite this excellent effort in cataloging the illnesses in order to end the outbreak and draw conclusions, the count is still incomplete.  I have spent the day working on the case of a retirement aged woman from Wisconsin who developed HUS after consuming Dole Spinach from the same lot associated with the outbreak.   She spent 7 weeks in the hospital.    She only survived through the receipt of donated blood, mechanical ventilation and dialysis.   Yet because she was not tested for E. coli O157:H7 until well into her hospitalization she is not one of the 49. 

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on April 13, 2009 (boomark / email).