In the late 1990's, there was an outbreak of e-coli that was eventually traced to apple juice made from apples that had fallen to the ground & not been washed before being converted to juice or cider. While lying on the ground, the apples had been contaminated with deer feces that contained the e-coli. After the connection had been established, people were warned not to eat apples or fruit that had not been washed, or, preferably cooked if it came from an orchard that deer have been known to visit Stores began to label their apple products as pasteurized, a process that killed bacteria.

Deer over-population sends deer down from the hills to farms & gardens in search of green stuff to nibble on. There they leave their droppings that can contaminate produce r water. Predators of deer - wolves & coyotes can also spread the bacteria. We garden organically, using compost piles. Deer also visit our property regularly. My family & I have always washed everything before we eat it, but now I am wondering if washing is enough & also if the lettuce we buy in packages from the supermarket in the winter is also safe to eat with only a washing

Dear Salon readers,

first, I'd like to clear up and apologize for any confusion regarding my article on E coli 0157:H7 last week.

I received special permission to speak to Dr. Tauxe, the deputy director of the foodborne illness division at the CDC late last Friday, which was fortunate, because this division was working day and night on the spinach contamination problem, and mine was the only interview granted that day.

My original article addressed the possible contamination between cow manure and contaminated water, or direct contamination between organic fertilizer containing manure and crops. But the Salon editors rightly felt that was old turf, and had been written about in many places, including by me in the WSJ, the Boston Globe, and Newsday.

Dr. Tauxe felt that the culprit was most likely deer, and he is in close contact with his operatives in the field in the Salinas valley, where there is plenty of deer. One letter writer disagreed with this possibility, though the following letter agreed with it. And just as with cattle, deer are hosts for this bacteria, but don't get sick from it, because they lack the receptor that we humans have to make the bacterial toxin work.

It is false to believe that if only a spinach field is affected that somehow rules out deer, because they would go to more fields. That way of thinking would rule out contamination from almost any source.

I made it clear in my piece that this E coli doesn't make the host animals sick, but one letter writer faulted me for referring to "infected stool." I would point out that the word infection applies not to just severe infections, but to sub-clinical or even assymptomatic ones. These E coli are not part of the natural flora of cows or deers, and they do not help in digestion. The only reason they aren't pathologic is because the cow (and deer) lack the enzyme. The word "infect" applies, especially since i go on to clarify it in the piece.

The CDC had some very interesting observations to make regarding the overuse of antibiotics in cattle and how it causes the E coli to "express its toxins" but we deleted that statement because of the confusion mixing cow and deer together in the same piece may have caused.

We were operating with the assumption that readers were aware of the multiple articles in the media about manure, water contamination, and the possibility of this E coli coming from cows.

There have been a least nine outbreaks of E Coli in Salinas Valley over the past 10 years, but the exact cause of each outbreak has not been determined.

The interview with Dr. Tauxe revealed the following new information:

1 - Dr. Tauxe of the CDC believes the cause of the outbreak is likely to be contamination from deer droppings. They haven't been able to tie it to irrigation or cow manure in two weeks, and deer are seeming more and more likely. There are plenty of deer in the area, despite the existence of some natural predators. Even the mountain cats the letter writer mentions as natural predators of deer have been found to harbor this bacteria.

2 - the CDC believes this is a very virulent bug. They described it as expressing only the second shiga toxin, which is characteristic of this virulence. This is why i called it a superbug. They were also very clear that the lack of "secondary spread" meant that it would be a limited outbreak. I have written extensively elsewhere about the need not to overreact to limited health threats even when the bug is virulent, though this was not the topic here.

3 - Studies have shown that feeding antibiotics to cattle can cause their E coli to express their toxins and perhaps be more easily harmful to humans. However, there is no evidence that this has occurred in the current case, since cow manure has not been directly implicated at this point, which is why this line was ultimately deleted from the article.

sorry again for any confusion.

Marc Siegel MD

The problem is not the chemical compounds used or their derivation (organic vs. conventional), the problem is one of scale. At a facility the size of Natural Selections, the end result is that of washing millions of servings in the same dirty water. The solution is simple: downsize agribusiness.

Downsizing would accomplish many goals: save family farms; improve health and nutrition; and hamper the ability of ADM and other overlarge combines to manipulate markets and exploit the needs of the people for personal profit.

...in an earlier article by Salon this problem of E.coli could be contained in a very easy way-feed the cows grass for a week before slaughter.While this won't effect the deer in the area, it would have an affect on the manure used to fertilize the veggies on the "organic" farms.

As a lab tech I can tell you that deer or no deer-this is more than likely a case of the manure used to fertilize the spinich was untreated waste that probably still contained the strain of bug that is now infecting people.

While I laude the farms/farmers going the organic route,there needs to be safeguards in place to ensure that contaminated manure is not introduced to the growth process.

All kinds of theories-but no convincing answers so far.But we'll figure this out.There are a lot of good/very educated people working on this.Best of luck to them.

P.S.: The more people getting sick is also a lesson in the fact that most people just don't pay attention to the MSM or other media who have been reporting this outbreak for over a week now.Where have they been?

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