E. COLI: Nearly 100 people have been sickened; one has died.
A California natural foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100. Supermarkets across the country, including Alaska, pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green.
Food and Drug Administration officials said that they had received reports of illness in 19 states -- among them Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, based in San Juan Bautista, Calif., and the company has voluntarily recalled products containing spinach.
FDA officials stressed that the bacteria had not been isolated in products sold by Natural Selection Foods but that the link was established by patient accounts of what they had eaten before becoming ill.
An investigation was continuing.
"It is possible that the recall and the information will extend beyond Natural Selection Foods and involve other brands and other companies, at other dates," said Dr. David Acheson, the chief medical officer with the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Natural Selection Foods LLC said in a statement that it was cooperating with federal and state health officials to identify the source of the contamination and had stopped shipping all fresh spinach products. They are sold as Rave Spinach, Natural Selection Foods, Dole, Earthbound Farm, Trader Joe's, Ready Pac, Green Harvest, among other brand names.
Across Anchorage, stores such as Carrs/Safeway, Fred Meyer, Sam's Club and Costco pulled fresh, bagged spinach off display shelves.
Sean Hancock, Costco manager of the Bragaw outlet, said no bagged spinach, or any other bagged greens that may contain fresh spinach, will be sold there until they find out whether their supply is contaminated.
There were no reports of Alaskans falling ill. Still, the state Department of Health and Social Services issued an alert advising consumers against eating bagged spinach and said anyone who has experienced symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting and severe cramps after consuming fresh spinach should call their doctor.
Late Friday morning, Red Apple in Mountain View still had bagged spinach on shelves but eventually removed it.
Bob Hutchins, a public relations spokesman for Red Apple supplier Associated Grocers, said Friday afternoon from his Seattle office that in the absence of an official FDA recall, it's up to individual stores to make the decision. "There have been no issues with our suppliers. We've informed our customers to be cautious. For now, it's a buyer beware situation."
The bug has sickened at least 94 people across the nation, the CDC said. The agency added that 29 people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure. Wisconsin accounted for 29 illnesses, about one-third of the cases, including the lone death.
State health officials in the Lower 48 received the first reports of illness Aug. 25, and the FDA was informed on Wednesday, Acheson said.
The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get rid of the tenacious bug, though thorough cooking can kill it.
"We're waiting for the all-clear. In the meantime, Popeye the Sailor Man and this family will not be eating bagged spinach," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. The Tennessee university's medical center was treating one of the victims, a 17-year-old Kentucky girl, for E. coli infection.
For Alaskans who have packaged spinach in their refrigerators, the best advice is to pitch whatever is left. And don't trust salad bars either.
University of Alaska home economist Leslie Shallcross said Friday afternoon, "I just bought a bag last night, before the news." She ate it, apparently without ill effects. After she learned of the outbreak, "I thought, 'I may just put that in some soup.' "
The soup will kill the bacteria if the temperature is at least 155 degrees. That's the magic number, so use a kitchen thermometer to be sure. But, she said, making sure all the spinach reaches that temperature isn't easy to do. For example, in a wilted salad, each leaf may not get that hot. Boiling is best, but that defeats the desire for fresh spinach.
Each year, consumers buy hundreds of millions of pounds of bagged spinach -- triple-washed and packaged in cellophane bags and clamshell boxes.
FDA officials said they issued the nationwide consumer alert without waiting to identify the still-unknown source of the tainted spinach.
"Early is good," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, adding that the alert may have prevented hundreds more cases.
An industry spokeswoman said public health concerns justified the blanket warning: "It needed to happen this way," said Kathy Means, a spokeswoman for the Produce Marketing Association. "Public health has to trump economics at this time."
More than half the nation's 500 million-pound spinach crop is grown in California's Monterey County, according to the Agriculture Department.
"We're trying to get to the bottom of this and figure out what happened. Everybody is terribly concerned," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation.
Alaska experts suggested what might have caused the national outbreak.
Ted Pyrah, Butte-area farmer and former professor of agriculture at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said he's pretty sure he can pinpoint the cause: unsanitary working conditions in the fields.
"It's not a much of a mystery. You're going to find workers who are not doing proper sanitation. They aren't provided the sanitation equipment, toilets, washing water."
Rick Thomas of DiTomaso Fruit & Vegetables, an Anchorage produce wholesaler, has a different take.
"I think it's confined to one warehouse or one processing facility. Now, it could be the habits of employees there."
He recalled a similar incident several years ago that was caused by a plant using tainted water to wash the vegetables.
The FDA's top food expert stressed the importance of stopping the bacterium at its source, since rinsing spinach won't eliminate the risk. "If you wash it, it is not going to get rid of it," said Robert Brackett, director of the agency's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition.
E. coli lives in the intestines of cattle and other animals and typically is spread through contamination by fecal material. Brackett said the use of manure as a fertilizer for produce typically consumed raw, such as spinach, is not in keeping with good agricultural practices. "It is something we don't want to see," he told a food policy conference.
The Associated Press and Daily News food editor T.C. Mitchell contributed to this report. Mitchell can be reached at tcmitchell@adn.com.
