Wild pigs suspected in E. coli outbreak

[DouglasW]

Anyone ever worry about or test the hogs they harvest? Would a tainted pig even show outward signs of illness?

I'm guessing a touch of E. Coli could spoil your ham & eggs breakfast.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wild pigs may have spread deadly bacteria onto a California spinach field, sparking an outbreak that killed three people and sickened more than 200 others nationwide, investigators said Thursday. They also said the outbreak appears to be over.

No one has become ill from eating contaminated spinach since Sept. 25. "All evidence points to this outbreak having concluded," said Dr. Kevin Reilly of the California Department of Health Services.

State and federal investigators have narrowed their focus to the ranch, where boar trampled fences that had hemmed in a spinach field.

Samples taken from a wild pig, as well as from stream water and cattle on the ranch, have tested positive for the same strain of E. coli implicated in the outbreak, said Dr. Kevin Reilly of the California Department of Health Services.

Still, investigators continue to look at three other ranches in the areas in seeking the source of the contaminated fresh spinach.

"We are not saying this is the source at this point," Reilly said of the ranch.

The outbreak sickened 204 people in 26 states and one Canadian province, he said.

Wild pigs are one "real clear vehicle" that could explain how E. coli spread from cattle on the ranch to the spinach field less than a mile away, Reilly said. The pigs could have tracked the bacteria into the field or spread it through their droppings, he said.

Investigators also are looking at runoff, flooding, irrigation water, fertilizer and other wildlife, including deer, as possible sources.

Investigators first recovered the same strain of bacteria earlier this month from three cattle manure specimens collected on the ranch. On Thursday, Reilly said the strain had been isolated from six other samples collected on the ranch, including from cattle.

The finds mark the first time that investigators have identified a possible source for any of the multiple E. coli outbreaks linked to the heavily agricultural area.

Reilly refused to give a location for the ranch, other than to say it's in a valley in the area of San Benito and Monterey counties.

Investigators have taken roughly 750 samples from the four ranches. They've found generic E. coli on all four ranches -- the bug is commonly found in cattle -- but turned up the particular strain involved in the outbreak on only one.

"We have no evidence to suggest people should not be eating spinach from other places -- except from these four ranches," said Jack Guzewich, of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

source

 

[.38 Special]

E. coli is not a bug that lives in the muscle of the living animal.

E. coli is found in the intestinal tracts of many mammals, humans included. Some strains are more virulent than others (there are hundreds of strains) but many/most of them are best left outside of your mouth. Thus the warnings about mixing guts with meat.

Even if your particular animal has a nasty strain of E. coli in its gut, there is no especial hazard to consuming the meat, as long as you are careful to keep the colon intact as you remove it, prevent the guts from coming into contact with the meat as much as possible, wash your hands after gutting, and rinse the meat thoroughly with water after dressing.

 

[rbernie]

The fact that this strain of e. Coli may exist in the pigs' gastrointestinal system doesn't mean that the meat is likely contaminated. Well, not unless you rub the hams in pigchit or some such foolishness, anyway.

EDIT - Ooops. Looks like 38Special is faster on the draw than I. <lol>

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I don't get how they have determined pigs to be likely when they note other animals could have spread the bacteria as well, such as deer. Why would pigs be any more of a source than any other animal?

 

[CRAZY-G]

As 38 special said E-coli is in all mammal's intestinal tracts,keeping the meat clean while butchering is really important,cooking meat to at least 145 degrees kills all E-coli

 

[rhubarb]

As if we needed another reason to hunt pigs. But if it'll keep the grass eaters from getting e. coli, I'll do what I can to help.

 

[Cosmoline]

Please read what .38 Special wrote! I'm so sick of this nonsense about E. coli being something akin to Ebola. We all have E. coli in our systems now. The problem isn't E. coli, it's the high octane type of E. coli from certain livestock. They digest different things than we do, and their intestinal bacteria are consequently meaner. The fact that they have the high octane E. coli does not meant they're sick or diseased. But if you ingest that type of bacteria, it will overrun your system because your system is set up to digest cooked meat and mild veges not tough grasses or rotten sludge.

Do not get paranoid about this stuff. Basic cleaning and cooking procedures kill it off.

 

[.38 Special]

Huh. Five semesters of biology and it's finally been useful for something.

< edit >Also another good reason not to gut shoot game. Next we'll talk about prion diseases and why you shouldn't aim for the CNS. (I'm determined to get my money's worth out of all those bio classes!)

 

[trickyasafox]

hey 38spl

are prions those little jobbers that are small enough to pass through the membrain surrounding your brain and cause a chemical reaction upon contact with the tissue there giving you jacobs crutchfields syndrome? (i know i butchered the spelling of half the stuff here, as well as content)

 

[Vern Humphrey]

hey 38spl

are prions those little jobbers that are small enough to pass through the membrain surrounding your brain and cause a chemical reaction upon contact with the tissue there giving you jacobs crutchfields syndrome? (i know i butchered the spelling of half the stuff here, as well as content)

The first symptom is bad spelling.

 

[.38 Special]

The first symptom is bad spelling.

LOL!

Ayuh, trickyasafox, that's close enough. Prions are misfolded proteins with the property of self-replication, I think is how the textbook goes. Once in the brain, they self-replicate like crazy, building up plaques in various parts of the brain. Depending on which prion it is, you get Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (just say "CJD" ), Fatal Familial Insomnia (Neat-O disease upon which I once wrote a paper. You stay awake for several years and then die. No actual documented cases stemming from the ingestion of anything; looks to be a genetic disorder. You wouldn't want to eat the brain of anyone who died from it though...), Bovine Spongeiform Encephalitis (mad cow), sheep scrapie, and -- this is the important one for us -- chronic wasting disease.

So don't gut shoot and don't aim for the head/neck.

 

[longrifleman]

and don't aim for the head/neck.

Poor Art ain't gonna be able to ever go huntin' agin ever.

 

[kungfuhippie]

to double naught spy

I think the reason they could trace it to pigs was the strain of ecoil, specific to trash eaters, like pigs.

My sister worked in the area before moving to Washington and told me before this "pig information" that the ecoli probably came from a processing plant worker, and that the organic processing plants arn't as careful as regular plants, they don't use soap on the machinery as often, only as legally required, because they have to rinse the machines off more to keep the organic seal (no soap residue). If one worker was contaminated he'd spread the ecoli to several different field's crops (which is what happened). However the pig thing is possible too. I'm no expert, just what a major head of quality control in the food processing industry told me (dumbed up so I understood) Haven't asked her about it since the pig idea was hatched. But is was enough for me to not want organic anything, I like chemicals that clean my food, kill the bugs, and keep me safe. I wish they'd irradiate stuff in America already, it kills all the micro-organisms , you could eat raw pork

 

[countertop]

Uh, the pig thing is a wild ass guess based mostly on the perceived large numbers of wild hogs in the area (which they are trying to eradicate)

My sister worked in the area before moving to Washington and told me before this "pig information" that the ecoli probably came from a processing plant worker, and that the organic processing plants arn't as careful as regular plants, they don't use soap on the machinery as often, only as legally required, because they have to rinse the machines off more to keep the organic seal (no soap residue). If one worker was contaminated he'd spread the ecoli to several different field's crops (which is what happened). However the pig thing is possible too. I'm no expert, just what a major head of quality control in the food processing industry told me (dumbed up so I understood) Haven't asked her about it since the pig idea was hatched. But is was enough for me to not want organic anything, I like chemicals that clean my food, kill the bugs, and keep me safe. I wish they'd irradiate stuff in America already, it kills all the micro-organisms , you could eat raw pork

As to the processing water - the first thoughts were that it was "yellow" water - that is the water from the top of a manure lagoon from a beef or dairy operation that was used for irrigation. The e-coli was internal to the spinach and thus wasn't really the result of the processing plant water, but was actually something sucked up into the plant.

Good idea on the "not organic anything." What they use is generally as toxic as synthetic chemicals - (think about all the nasty things nature has created, they are all ?"organic") but mostly cause "organic is simply a marketing term used by Whole Foods to charge 2-3 times as much for lesser quality food (read Michael Pollan's The Omniovres Dilmemma for a good left wing attack on Whole Foods).

As to the whole pig thing - the enviros and PETA types are always attacking "Facotry Farms" while the truth of the matter is that the animals (or at least in the case of pigs) are a whole lot healthier in a modern agricutlural faciltiy, have a longer life span on whole than in the wild (where up to 50+% of pigs will die from disease a year), no exposure to predators, and are much healthier for you to eat (nearly 0% chance of trichinosis, vs larger risk from pigs raised outdoors.

No actual documented cases stemming from the ingestion of anything; looks to be a genetic disorder. You wouldn't want to eat the brain of anyone who died from it though...), Bovine Spongeiform Encephalitis (mad cow), sheep scrapie, and -- this is the important one for us -- chronic wasting disease.

yep, and of course this appears to be one disease that doesn't impact hogs for some reason - perhaps cause they are natural carnivores/scavanergers as opposed to deers and cows and sheep which naturally consume grass and leaves. Think about it, one of the reason pork isn't kosher, is because the perceived health risk from eating a "dirty" animal, yet its that "dirty" nature that might in the end make it a safer meat to eat.

 

[Gordon]

I hunt the ranch where this happened Lots of Feds these days, hope it doesnt hurt my turkey hunt! We all figured it was pigs from the outset. The ranchers involved hires a pig erraticator because they are so many of them I been eating those pigs off the ranch, even this year, course we cook the heck out of pig meat, doesnt everybody? We figured it wasnt the cattle early on, as they dont ever get in the fields. Of course the general conciensous is a field worker took a dump in a harvest bin, not an uncommon happening which all the processing in the world isnt gonna fix

 

[Cosmoline]

yep, and of course this appears to be one disease that doesn't impact hogs for some reason - perhaps cause they are natural carnivores/scavanergers as opposed to deers and cows and sheep which naturally consume grass and leaves.

Are you talking about the prions or E. coli?

 

[countertop]

Cosmoline

prions

 

[Cosmoline]

OK, but keep in mind that the prion conditions either arise from flaws in the CNS of the animal or come from another animal eating one of the prion-infested animals. Among humans it sometimes comes as a result of too much cannibalism or too many squirrel brains in the eggs. Since prions aren't alive, they can't be killed by cooking. On the "up" side, the prions can sit dormant for decades. As a result carnivores and onmivores such as wolves, wild dogs, pigs and the like don't get sick because they don't live long enough. One thing that worries a lot of scientists is the possibility that enormous amounts of prion material have worked their way into the food we eat because herbivores raised for consumption and fed parts of the CNS from other herbivores in high-protein feed are infested without showing any symptoms. There is no screening test for these other than taking the brain apart and looking at it very closely. Even then the prions only become apparent when they start multiplying and destroying tissue.

 

[JohnKSa]

As a result carnivores and onmivores such as wolves, wild dogs, pigs and the like don't get sick because they don't live long enough.

Yup--scary...

 

[eastwood44mag]

Pigs spreading E. coli?

Someone ought to pass a law. Tell your Congressmen you want wild pigs outlawed.