Food Safety Outbreak: Spinach
As bagged salads have become big business in the U.S, E. Coli bacteria has contaminated the greens again and again.
From 1995 to 2005, fresh lettuce and spinach were the source of over 400 illnesses, resulting in dozens of cases of kidney failure and two deaths in 19 separate outbreaks. A single outbreak of E. Coli in spinach starting in August 2006 sickened over 200 people in 26 states; five died.
The parties involved with growing, processing, testing, fertilizing, and regulating leafy greens had trouble identifying where the problem lay. The FDA complained that it lacked both funds to inspect growers’ operations and authority to mandate reforms. Labs complained of unclear guidelines about what were acceptable levels of bacteria.
Several outbreaks were traced the Salinas Valley, California, where three quarters of the nation’s spinach is grown. There, E. Coli had an opportunity to contaminate crops in several ways. Manure from nearby cattle in creek water that came onto vegetable fields via irrigation or flooding was a prime suspect, but raw manure used as fertilizer and worker hygiene were also possiblities.
The problem was further complicated because centralized processing facilities mixed greens from many farms quickly, then shipped them all over the country, making any local contamination into a potentially nationwide problem. Former USDA official and current consumer advocate Carol Tucker Foreman said “If you raise spinach in the Salinas Valley and it’s in 40 states in a few days, you can’t have a system that says we won’t do anything until somebody gets sick.”
After the 2006 outbreak, California growers got together and created industry food safety guidelines. These included testing irrigation water for pathogens, treating compost before applying it to fields, creating buffer zones with neighboring livestock, and requiring that field workers wear hairnets. These measures did reduce the number of greens-related outbreaks, though recalls in the U.S. and Canada in the spring of 2010 were a reminder that the problem did not completely go away.
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Sources
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Report cites weaknesses in FDA spinach inspection by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. University of Minnesota. March 13, 2008.
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California Urged to Monitor Farms for Food Safety. Center for Science in the Public Interest. October 25, 2006, accessed August 2, 2010.
Flawed food chain: Weaknesses spread germs, by Associated Press, October 9,2006, accessed August 1, 2010.
Cainia Calvan, B and De Britoe D. 2010. California lettuce warning recalls 2006 spinach deaths. McClatchy Newspapers. July 18, accessed August 5, 2010.
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