TWO CHILDREN DEAD FROM E.COLI OUTBREAK IN UTAH

Utah health authorities were investigating Monday what triggered an E.coli outbreak in a mostly-polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border after the bacteria killed two children and sickened four others. Early indications suggest the E.coli may be linked to contaminated food or exposure to animals, not the town of Hildale’s water supply, said David Heaton, spokesman for the Southwest Utah Public Health Department. He said it appears isolated to one neighbourhood. Heaton said the children died in the past two weeks

after getting hemolytic uremic syndrome, also known as HUS, which causes kidney damage. The four other people who came down with E.coli in Hildale are children and adults but Heaton didn’t have the exact breakdown. The sister towns of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz., are home to a polygamous group known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago.