Source of tainted lettuce unknown

Health officials continued to warn against consuming romaine lettuce Wednesday, as a 19th case of infection caused by this latest E. coli outbreak was confirmed in Canada, this time in New Brunswick. The New Brunswick Department of Health issued a news release on Wednesday in which the province’s chief medical officer of health confirmed that E. coli from romaine lettuce is the likely source of the latest infection. On Tuesday, public health officials in Canada and the U.S. warned that the current outbreak — the third E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce in the past year — had affected 15 people in Quebec, three in Ontario and at least 32 people in the United States between mid-October and early November. Six people in Canada have been hospitalized, and one suffered from hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a severe complication that can result from E. coli infection. No deaths have been reported in this latest outbreak. The Public Health Agency of Canada is collaborating with provincial public health officials, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to investigate the outbreak. So far, no source has been identified and no product recall has been issued. Some grocery store chains, such as Loblaws and Sobeys, have removed all romaine lettuce from their shelves as a precaution. Health officials are advising consumers to avoid eating romaine lettuce and salad mixes containing romaine lettuce, at home or in restaurants. Washing the lettuce is not a sufficient precaution; they advise people to throw out any romaine lettuce they have in their homes, even if some has already been consumed and nobody got sick. Dr. Lawrence Goodridge, professor of food safety at McGill University and an expert in food-borne and water-borne pathogens, said the strain of E. coli that has been identified in this outbreak, E. coli O157, is more likely than other strains to cause severe illness. He noted it is the same strain that was involved in the water contamination disaster in Walkerton, Ont., 18 years ago that sickened more than 2,000 people and killed six. (Another bacteria called Campylobacter jejuni was also found in the Walkerton water supply.) This is the third outbreak of E. coli infection linked to romaine lettuce consumption in the last year. Last spring, eight Canadians in five provinces contracted infections from E. coli O157. That outbreak was traced by the U.S. FDA to romaine lettuce produced in Imperial County, Calif., and Yuma County, Ariz., although no specific farms were identified. The toll of that outbreak was much heavier in the U.S., where 210 people in 36 states became ill and five people died. And in December 2017, there were 42 cases of E. coli O157 illness reported in five Canadian provinces, including 15 cases in Quebec. In that outbreak, 17 people were hospitalized and one person died. “Three outbreaks (of E. coli related to romaine lettuce) in a year, potentially from different sources, is cause for concern,” Goodridge said. “Is there anything specific about romaine lettuce that makes it high risk? That’s a good question,” he said. “We really don’t know the answer to that yet, although there is some research ongoing to try to figure that out.” He stressed that romaine lettuce is far from the only food that causes illness, noting there have been food-borne illness outbreaks related to many types of fruits and vegetables, notably the recent salmonella infection outbreak linked to cucumbers.