Calif. death reported in E. coli outbreak tied to Ariz. lettuce

The nationwide food poisoning outbreak from E. coli-contaminated romaine lettuce has claimed its first fatality, a person in California, and the contagion has sickened a total of 121 people in 25 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday.

That’s an increase of 23 people and three states — Kentucky, Massachusetts and Utah — since the most recent CDC update Friday. With the numbers ratcheting up every week, the outbreak is approaching the scale of the 2006 baby spinach E. coli outbreak, in which 205 people became sick and five of them died.

This strain of E. coli produces a toxin that causes vomiting and diarrhea and potentially other severe symptoms, including in some cases kidney failure. Of the people sickened, 52 have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure.

The bacteria normally live in the intestines of animals, including cows and pigs, and in the 1990s, most E. coli cases were associated with contaminated hamburger. Reforms in the livestock industry have reduced the number of outbreaks involving meat, but that has been offset by a surge in E. coli contamination of leafy greens.

One farm in Yuma, Ariz., has been identified as supplying the whole-head lettuce linked to a cluster of E. coli cases among prisoners in Nome, Alaska. But investigators have not specified when and where that lettuce became contaminated with the dangerous bacteria, and the farm has not been linked to other cases.

The Yuma region includes farms across the Colorado River in southeastern California.