Spinach Outbreak Linked to Grass-fed Cattle
October 31, 2006
Seven grass-fed cattle on ranch test positive for deadly strain of E. coli. FDA still unsure how bacteria got onto spinach
By Alex Avery
Churchville, VA — Monday, October 30, 2006
Since the last FDA Media update on the afternoon of Friday, October 27, several media outlets have reported that the FDA suspects wild boar or other wildlife may have transferred a deadly strain of E. coli from nearby a cattle pasture to spinach fields implicated in this Summer’s E. coli O157:H7 outbreak.
Notably absent from this recent coverage is the fact that the cattle on the implicated ranch – on which seven animals positive for the outbreak-strain of E. coli – were all grass-fed, pasture-raised animals. There were not the “industrial” grain-fed feedlot cattle that activists have been point a premature accusatory finger at over the past month.
Numerous organic and “natural” food websites have tried to claim that E. coli O157:H7 is only a problem on “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations” or CAFOs.
Richard DeWilde said on “The Wedge” natural food co-op site “The real question is, is there a big animal feeding unit coming down stream?”
Greg Reynolds on the same website said, “The point has to be made that e.coli (sic) O157:H7 is primarily found in CAFO beef and dairy cattle feedlot manure. It is fostered by feeding cattle corn when they should be eating grass and hay. Manure is not the problem. Pathenogenic e.coli (sic) from feedlots is the problem.”
But as we’ve stated all along, there is precious little evidence that O157:H7 is a problem exclusive to feedlot cattle or only ruminents fed grain. A thorough discussion of the distorted reporting and “science” that has led to this “popular wisdom” can be found here. As beef industry analyst Dan Murphy of Meatingplace.com put it, “The conclusions drawn by [New York Times writer Nina Planck] and others who leap to the simplistic conclusion that feeding grain to cattle “created” O157:H7, and that a magical switch from grain to forage — as if that were even possible — would solve the problem are way off the mark.”
This latest finding of the FDA/CDFA investigation completely destroys the claims of the organic activists and opponents to grain-finished beef operations.
It should also be clear that the average beef animal in the U.S. has obtained three-quarters of its body weight at slaughter from grass, hay, alfalfa and other human inedible feedstuffs (such as distillers dried grains, citrus pulp, and agricultural feedstuffs that would otherwise need to be disposed of if it wasn’t used as vital animal feed) and that only one-quarter comes from human-edible grains such as corn. Grains are given to cattle after the majority of their growth has occurred in order to “finish” the animal and improve flavor, texture, and quality.
I end today’s blog with the following excerpt from Madeline Drexler’s 2002 book Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections, published by the Joseph Henry Press, and found excerpted here:
“E. coli O157:H7 contaminates unpasteurized cider when fallen apples touch cattle or deer waste and are then mixed with other pieces of fruit. Numerous lettuce outbreaks have occurred after the heads were exposed to cattle manure. Organic foods are hardly immune to these pitfalls. In fact, microbiologists have found more bacterial contamination on organic than on conventionally grown produce, and no one is quite sure how much composting it takes to knock off pathogens in manure. That gap in knowledge has real-life consequences. In rural Maine in 1992, a woman who abided by a lacto-vegetarian diet, consisting almost exclusively of vegetables fertilized with manure from her cow and calf, developed E. coli O157:H7 when she failed to wash the vegetables well enough. Through improper handwashing, she passed the infection on to three neighborhood children, one of whom, a three-year-old boy, died of kidney failure.”
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