As of Friday, July 31, 2009, 80 persons infected with a strain of E. coli O157:H7 with a particular DNA fingerprint have been reported from 31 states. Of these, 70 have been confirmed by an advanced DNA test as having the outbreak strain; these confirmatory test results are pending on the others. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Arizona (2), California (5), Colorado (6), Connecticut (1), Delaware (1), Georgia (2), Iowa (2), Idaho (1), Illinois (7), Kentucky (2), Massachusetts (4), Maryland (2), Maine (3), Minnesota (8), Missouri (1), Montana (1), North Carolina (2), New Hampshire (2), New Jersey (1), Nevada (2), New York (1), Ohio (3), Oklahoma (1), Oregon (1), Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina (1), Texas (3), Utah (4), Virginia (2), Washington (6), and Wisconsin (1).

Most persons became ill during May and June. Ill persons range in age from 2 to 65 years; however, 66% are less than 19 years old; 69% are female. Thirty-five persons have been hospitalized, 10 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS); none have died.
Investigation of the Outbreak

In an epidemiologic study, ill persons answered questions about foods consumed during the days before becoming ill and investigators compared their responses to those of persons of similar age and gender previously reported to State Health Departments with other illnesses. Preliminary results of this investigation indicate a strong association with eating raw prepackaged cookie dough. Most patients reported eating refrigerated prepackaged Nestle Toll House cookie dough products raw.

On June 29, 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that a culture of a sample of prepackaged Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough currently under recall yielded E. coli O157:H7. The contaminated sample was collected at the firm on June 25, 2009. Further laboratory testing showed that the strain in the sample was not the outbreak strain.

E. coli O157:H7 has not been previously associated with eating raw cookie dough. CDC, the state health departments, and federal regulatory partners are working together in this ongoing investigation.
Clinical Features

Most people infected with E. coli O157:H7 develop diarrhea (often bloody) and abdominal cramps 2-8 days (average of 3-4 days) after swallowing the organism, but some illnesses last longer and are more severe. Infection is usually diagnosed by culture of a stool sample. Most people recover within a week, but some develop a severe infection. A type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) can begin as the diarrhea is improving; this can occur in people of any age but is most common in children under 5 years old and the elderly.
Advice to Consumers

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to warn consumers not to eat any varieties of the recalled Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough due to the risk of contamination with E. coli O157:H7. This includes Nestlé Toll House cookie dough that does not say “new batch” on the labeling. Consumers who have the recalled prepackaged, refrigerated Nestle Toll House cookie dough products in their homes should throw it away. Cooking the dough is not recommended because consumers might get the bacteria on their hands or on surfaces. The recall does not include Nestle Toll House morsels, which are used as an ingredient in many home-made baked goods and other baked cookie products. The recall also does not include newly made Nestle refrigerated cookie dough products; these products can be identified by labels with shields that say “new batch” on them.

Individuals who have recently eaten recalled prepackaged, refrigerated Toll House cookie dough and have experienced any of these symptoms should contact their doctor or health care provider immediately. Any such illnesses should be reported to state or local public health authorities.

Consumers should be reminded they should not eat raw food products that are intended for cooking or baking before consumption. Consumers should use safe food-handling practices when preparing such products, including following package directions for cooking at proper temperatures; washing hands, surfaces, and utensils after contact with these types of products; avoiding cross contamination; and refrigerating products properly.
Advice to Retailers, Restaurateurs, and Food-service Operators

Retailers, restaurateurs, and personnel at other food-service operations should not sell or serve any Nestle Toll House prepackaged, refrigerated cookie dough products subject to the recall.

Reprinted from CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2009/0807.html

When you become a vegetarian, it’s easy to say you’re doing it for a particular cause, whether it be a healthier you, animals, or even the environment. But as I sat and watched Food, Inc. the other night, I realized that the driving factor should be the appalling behavior of our nation’s food industry.

If there’s any indication that the government has forgotten about regular people, it’s with the food industry. It’s obvious that in our rapid plunge from the top country in the world, we’ve created a lot of issues to pay for. We need to make money. But doing so at the expense of the American people is not the answer.

When I was a kid, I was always told in school that our government and all its’ regulatory agencies cared about us–that they were the watchdogs for our well-being, and I believed it. Maybe it was an antiquated notion, but that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Everything goes to the highest bidder now–it’s all about making money, above everything else.

To say that we consumers have been in the dark about the food in our supermarkets is a vast understatement: we’re basically clueless. We have absolutely no idea what our food goes through or how far it travels before it lands on our plates. And it’s our blind faith in the USDA and FDA that needs a rude awakening.

In Food Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner shows us just how much the food industry has been hiding from us in the last 20-30 years. As an industry that was once controlled by numerous companies, the food industry is now controlled by a handful of corporations (4 to be exact) that continuously put money ahead of consumer health and well-being. They destroy the livelihood of American farmers, expose employees to all kinds of antibiotics and contaminants, and damage the environment. They’ve remade our food in their image by making everything bigger: chickens, cows and pigs are all injected with hormones so they’ll grow faster. Corn is broken down and remade into thousands of different ingredients. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find one ingredient in the 47,000 products at a supermarket that doesn’t contain some variant of corn.

Food, Inc. gives viewers an appalling but true window into the mass production of our food. It makes insightful points about what we eat and how it’s produced. It’s also not afraid to put a spotlight on who’ve we become as a nation and where we’re going from here. I recommend this movie to anyone curious or that cares about where our food comes from. And trust me–we should care.

In Entertainment Weekly’s review of the film, Owen Gleiberman gave a striking last thought to sum up the film: “A big-picture vision of conglomerate duplicity and control, Food, Inc. is hard to shake, because days after you’ve seen it, you may find yourself eating something — a cookie, a piece of poultry, cereal out of the box, a perfectly round waxen tomato — and you’ll realize that you have virtually no idea what it actually is.”

Embedding for the Food, Inc. trailer has been disabled by request, but you can watch it here.