MB Civic

By Al Meyerhoff & William B. Shultz | Saturday, September 23, 2006 | The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/22/AR2006092201397.html

The Tainted Spinach Affair is just the latest in a stream of contamination problems leading to epidemics caused by produce from California’s Salinas Valley, which local advertisers proclaim as “America’s Salad Bowl”. How ironic. In reality, conditions there are surprisingly bad, particularly for foods such as lettuce and the like that are usually eaten uncooked. The source of the problem is raw sewage dumoed upriver (in violation of EPA laws) of the river water used to irrigate the crops. Not just this year, but for DECADES. YECCCHHHH!!!!! Face it: E. coli O157:H7 (a strain that is WAY worse than the typical “coliform” bacteria because it produces the heat stable Shiga Toxin – a multi-organ bio-poison that is NOT destroyed by heating to the temperatures used in home kitchens) is…a poop bug. In this excellent editoral, Al Meyerhoff (former director of the Natural Resources Defense Council public health program) and William B. Schultz (former FDA deputy commissioner from ’94 to ’98) review the back story. WARNING: if you have a delicate stomach, you may actually blow chunks after reading some of the SHOCKING and YUCKY details…bs