E. Coli outbreak

**ljbab728** · 06-06-2011, 12:43 AM

This could certainly give our organic food advocates pause:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110606/...etables_europe

**betts** · 06-06-2011, 12:52 AM

I believe there's no correlation to the fact that the food is organic. Actually, if I were an epidemiologist, I'd look at whether there are feed lots upstream from the farm in question. One possible explanation is a resistant strain of organism due to use of low levels of antibiotics as growth promoters in feed animals in the area. Sweden is the only European country that bans antibiotics in feed animals, I believe, so that would be my guess.

**ljbab728** · 06-06-2011, 01:11 AM

Originally Posted by betts

I believe there's no correlation to the fact that the food is organic. Actually, if I were an epidemiologist, I'd look at whether there are feed lots upstream from the farm in question. One possible explanation is a resistant strain of organism due to use of low levels of antibiotics as growth promoters in feed animals in the area. Sweden is the only European country that bans antibiotics in feed animals, I believe, so that would be my guess.

You could be correct and I'm sure a lot of studies will be done. But as the article mentions, even though animal manure wasn't used on the farm in question, it is in common use in organic farming. That raises concerns for me. To be sure, this probably won't be the only incident like this that will happen in the future and much work needs to be done to prevent future occurances.

**betts** · 06-06-2011, 08:04 AM

If we would ban use of antibiotics in feed animals, that would help considerably. Manure is a problem because those low levels of antibiotics are perfect for developing antibiotic resistance and causing bacterial evolution. Sweden has, and in addition to that, they've begun major public education programs, to teach their citizens that most colds, coughs and sore throats do not require antibiotics. Their incidence of methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA) has plummeted. Of course our pharmaceutical companies have huge lobbies and they make so much from selling bulk antibiotics to farmers and ranchers that a ban is not going to happen here without a massive public outcry.