Word: coli
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Regardless of how Alpine's water tasted, there was in fact something grievously--perhaps lethally--wrong with it. That something was a particularly dangerous strain of the E. coli bacterium called E. coli O157:H7, or O157 for short. Ordinarily a benign organism found in the intestines of human beings and animals, E. coli has a nasty ability to mutate and proliferate. Lately it has been proliferating with a vengeance. Five years ago, the fast-food industry was rocked when four children died and 500 other people fell ill after eating E. coli O157-contaminated hamburgers at Jack...
...problem indeed. Of all the bacteria that bloom in the body, E. coli is usually one of the most beneficial, helping to metabolize food in the intestine. In 1982, however, scientists discovered that E. coli wasn't always so benign. That year 26 people in Oregon were felled by a violent infection and intestinal disorder, and when doctors analyzed the bug behind the illness, they found that it was all but indistinguishable from ordinary E. coli, with but a small exception: this breed of the bacterium contained a few strands of genetic reweaving that cause it to produce a powerful...
When this fortified E. coli, which researchers dubbed the O157:H7 strain, takes hold in the body, it behaves savagely. Doctors believe the bacterial toxin first destroys blood vessels in the intestines, which accounts for the bloody diarrhea that is the signature symptom of the infection. The toxin then passes into the bloodstream, where it probably damages vessels throughout the body. This produces gummy clots that clog organs like the kidneys. Up to 5% of all people with O157 infection develop a kidney condition known as hemolytic uremic syndrome; up to 5% of all HUS cases are fatal. The clotting...
...COLI BEGONE! An experimental vaccine seems to prevent infection with the E.coli bacteria that cause food poisoning...
According to Glickman, after four deaths in 1993 resulted from E. Coli bacterial poisoning in fast-food hamburgers, the USDA received the necessary public and Congressional support to push meat inspection programs which detect bacteria invisible to traditional methods...