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Oklahoma Poured 6,500 Hours Into E. coli Probe

By PritzkerLaw

The Oklahoma State Department of Public Health issued a report this week that provides an excellent example of the impact that food poisoning has on our society -- beyond the ultimate price of human health and life.

For starters, the most important thing to remember about the E. coli O111 outbreak at Country Cottage Restaurant in northeastern Oklahoma last year was that contaminated food or water killed one of the patrons and sickened more than 300 others. National food safety law firm PritzkerOlsen, P.A., represents some of the victims, including a toddler who became seriously ill with hemolytic uremic syndrome and had to undergo dialysis.

According to the executive summary of the report, the state alone poured 6,481 hours of work into the public health response and investigation into what was to become the largest E. coli O111 outbreak in U.S. history. Once victims started to show up at Tulsa area hospitals with bloody diarrhea, it took less than 48 hours for health investigators to identify Country Cottage as the likely source of the outbreak. Shutting the restaurant down contained the outbreak, but investigators were never able to pinpoint the exact cause of transmission inside the restaurant. 

If you were to conservatively attach $65 an hour to the equation, the cost to Oklahoma taxpayers exceeded $420,000 -- probably much closer to half a million dollars. And that doesn't count the many hours of work on the outbreak performed by health departments in nearby states, the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

There's no surprises in the report, but here's what the official findings of the state's epidemiologic investigation indicate:

1. This was a point source outbreak originating from the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, Oklahoma.
2. Because the outbreak organism was not isolated from any environmental specimen, it could not be conclusively determined how E. coli O111 was introduced into the restaurant.
3. The exact mode of spread within the restaurant was not established, however, the epidemiological analyses suggests there was ongoing foodborne transmission of E. coli O111 to Country Cottage restaurant patrons between August 15 and August 24, 2008.

The report also had a nice, technical summary of how E. coli reaches and damages its victims:

Enterohemorrhagic E. coli can cause serious illness and pathology because of its ability to produce potent cytotoxins called Shiga toxins 1 and 2. Persons who ingest Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) may have a diarrheal illness ranging from very mild and non-bloody to severe with very bloody stools. Cattle and other ruminant animals such as sheep, goats, and deer are considered the primary reservoir of STEC bacteria. The infectious dose is very small and STEC are often spread by ingesting food items contaminated with ruminant feces that are not subsequently cooked. Person-to-person transmission, direct animal contact, and waterborne transmission, either from contaminated drinking water or recreational water, are other exposure routes.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on April 10, 2009 (boomark / email).