Yuma field connected to 8 E. coli infection cases

However, point of contamination remains a mystery

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday it has identified a single field in the Yuma area as the source of the romaine lettuce that led to eight cases of E. coli infection in Alaska, but has not established where the produce was contaminated with the bacteria.

Also Friday, the Centers for Disease Control said the E. coli outbreak linked to Yuma-grown romaine since April 13 has grown to 98 cases in 22 states, with at least 46 patients hospitalized and 10 developing a form of kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.

A field used by Yumabased Harrison Farms grew the lettuce that was eventually sold to a correctional facility near Nome, Alaska, where prisoners fell ill after consuming it, said Dr. Stic Harris, director of the FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation Network.

“We are continuing to examine all possibilities, including that the contamination occurred at any point during the growing, harvesting, packaging and distribution chain before reaching the Alaska facility,” he said. These cases are the only ones that have been traced back to romaine purchased as whole heads, rather than chopped and sold as bagged romaine or salad mixes.

All lettuce from this particular field was harvested between March 5-16 and is past its 21-day shelf life, Harris said.

More than two dozen other fields in the Yuma growing region are being considered as possible points of origin for other lettuce that has caused illness in the current outbreak, he said. The FDA did not identify the location of the Harrison Farms field, or whether the others are nearby or scattered throughout the growing area, citing confidentiality policies.

Harrison Farms released a statement Friday afternoon responding to the news: “As a family-owned company with long standing roots in Yuma, we are heartbroken to learn that romaine lettuce from our farm has been linked to a group of individuals in Alaska sickened by E. coli. Those impacted by this incident remain in our hearts and prayers. At this time the source of the contamination has not been identified. FDA and CDC’s investigation is ongoing and we have been told includes all parts of the supply chain. We are fully cooperating with both government agencies in their investigation.

“Our company has built a strong reputation of hard work and integrity over the course of many decades. We have a food safety program which meets and/or exceeds industry requirements, and our people are unequivocally passionate about it. We will continue our work with the Arizona Leafy Greens industry to

learn from this situation and use the findings from this tragedy to improve our program and industry practices,” the company said.

Amanda Brooks, food safety director for Harrison Farms, said no produce from the company’s fields is shipped by Harrison Farms Trucking, LLC. Both companies use the same address on County 3rd Street west of Yuma.

Many in the Yuma County agriculture industry were shocked Friday when the Harrison Farms land was identified by the FDA when the actual source of the contamination within the supply chain was still unclear.

“Harrison Farms, we know for a fact, has an unmatched food safety program,” said Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association President Steve Alameda. “Amanda Brooks, she’s involved in all sorts of activities, Yuma County Safe Produce Council and all that. She’s a leader in the field. This could happen to anybody. They’re doing whatever they’re supposed to be doing and more.

“So with that being said, we’re all upset. None of us saw the need to actually expose somebody or put somebody’s name out there like that. There’s going to be enough of that. I don’t know why the FDA would have done that,” he said.

FDA spokesman Peter Cassell said Friday, “It is normal procedure for us to announce updates to the investigation. This update, as you heard, is responsible for the illnesses related to whole heads of romaine. As we learn more in the investigation, we typically inform the public as appropriate.”

Bobbi McDermott, a retired USDA soil conservation specialist who writes the “Yuma Ag and You” columns for the Yuma Sun, said the contamination can occur in the field, during harvesting, cooling, processing, shipping or with the end user.

“If you know the process, you know there are way too many holes in this story. And if they can identify that as going to Harrison Farms, then they should know an awful lot more information that they should have put out with that, as opposed to just laying it on a grower.”

The government is continuing to warn consumers, restaurant and retailers to dispose of any romaine lettuce they currently have, and to make sure anything now on the shelves or being served in a restaurant was not grown in the Yuma growing area.

Harris made the announcement at a telephonic press conference from Washington, D.C. At the same time, Centers for Disease Control officials said the number of cases associated with the outbreak had grown to 98 illnesses in 22 states, the newest being Mississippi, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

The form of E. coli that has been isolated in this outbreak is more virulent than typical strains of the bacteria, the CDC said, with a hospitalization rate of 53 percent. In this way it’s similar to the 2006 E. coli outbreak linked to spinach grown near Salinas, Calif., that caused three deaths out of about 200 illnesses.

“It’s a bad E. coli, and anyone who consumes it can get really sick, so that’s probably our main message that we’d want to get across,” said Dr. Matt Wise, deputy branch chief for Outbreak Response at CDC.

The end of the growing season, along with the E. coli crisis, has slashed the amount of romaine coming from Yuma to zero cartons since April 20, versus 9,644 on April 13, according to the USDA Specialty Crop Market Report.

The national scope of the outbreak has drawn widespread media attention, and victims are beginning to explore their legal options. Seattle attorney Bill Marler specializes in food-safety litigation and said Friday he is representing almost 60 of the patients, not including the eight Alaska prisoners whose illnesses have been linked to the Harrison Farms field.

He has been retained by nine of the 10 patients who have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a form of kidney failure linked to E. coli that is usually reversible, but sometimes leads to permanent damage or death. Children and elderly adults are more susceptible to the syndrome, and three of his clients are under 18 and on dialysis, two in California and one in New York.

“But fortunately, most of the people who developed HUS are out of the hospital and home recovering, because most of them were adults, and they tend to bounce back a little quicker than some of these children,” he said.

He said the only lawsuits he’s filed so far related to this outbreak are for three New Jersey women against Panera Bread and Missouri-based Freshway Foods, its romaine supplier.

Marler noted that improved food safety practices over the last dozen years have kept foodborne E. coli clusters fewer and farther between, until now. “Since the ’06 spinach outbreak, the outbreaks have been relatively few and relatively small, and that’s a success story. And it’d be nice to figure out what happened here, because clearly something blew up that nobody wanted to see happen, but it’s a problem,” he said.

Alameda was in Salinas, Calif., Friday, where the epicenter of U.S. vegetable production moves every year as the Yuma season ends in March and April. He said growers up there have been telling him sales are holding steady despite the warnings about Yuma romaine.

“We seem to be doing OK, there’s good movement, and I think we’re going to come through it fine. People seem to be making a distinction between a romaine from Yuma issue, they’re actually separating it, and people are getting the message that what’s on the market is good,” he said.

The question of whether Yuma will still be fresh on consumer’s minds when its lettuce season starts up again in October and November is the big question. “Hopefully we get our reputation back and we move forward from there,”Alameda said.

McDermott said she hasn’t been putting too much stock in what the federal government has put out so far, and is supporting the industry the best she can: “I’ve been eating romaine every day since this whole thing started.”