LMS
09-22-2006, 11:37 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060922/us_nm/spinach_dc_4
1 hour, 48 minutes ago BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - A 2-year-old boy who drank a spinach shake died from a suspected E. coli (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=E.+coli) infection in a case that is possibly related to the nationwide health scare around spinach, a state health official said on Friday.
Kyle Allgood, of Chubbuck in the heart of Idaho's potato country, died on Wednesday night at a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, said Ross Mason, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
"His mother or someone in the house made him a spinach smoothie," Mason said.
"It's pretty likely that he died of E. coli," he said. "We're looking at the link with spinach."
A nationwide outbreak of E. coli had already killed one person and made at least 157 ill -- more than 80 of them sick enough to be hospitalized. At least 23 states have been affected, including Idaho.
The outbreak has been traced to nine farms in the Salinas Valley area of central California, which grows much of the nation's spinach. Officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Food+and+Drug%0AAdministration) are trying to find the source of the bacteria.
Farmers have stopped harvesting their spinach crops and supermarkets are no longer selling the vegetable as investigators seek to find the source of the problem. The Food and Drug Administration has cautioned consumers not to eat fresh or raw spinach.
It was not clear if the child had eaten the spinach mixed with yogurt before or after the warnings, Mason said.
The child died of hemolytic uremic syndrome, a sudden kidney failure that has been associated with E. coli 0157:H7 infection, Mason said.
Idaho officials will be talking to the family to gather more information about the illness and will be conducting tests of samples from the deceased boy.
To diagnose any foodborne illness, doctors have to test fecal samples, but often by the time a patient gets to the hospital the telltale bacteria, viruses or parasites have vanished.
But bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome are hallmarks of E. coli 0157:H7, a strain of the gut bacteria that infects 73,000 people and kills 61 in the United States each year.
Idaho officials expect results of the tests by next week.
1 hour, 48 minutes ago BOISE, Idaho (Reuters) - A 2-year-old boy who drank a spinach shake died from a suspected E. coli (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=E.+coli) infection in a case that is possibly related to the nationwide health scare around spinach, a state health official said on Friday.
Kyle Allgood, of Chubbuck in the heart of Idaho's potato country, died on Wednesday night at a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, said Ross Mason, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
"His mother or someone in the house made him a spinach smoothie," Mason said.
"It's pretty likely that he died of E. coli," he said. "We're looking at the link with spinach."
A nationwide outbreak of E. coli had already killed one person and made at least 157 ill -- more than 80 of them sick enough to be hospitalized. At least 23 states have been affected, including Idaho.
The outbreak has been traced to nine farms in the Salinas Valley area of central California, which grows much of the nation's spinach. Officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Food+and+Drug%0AAdministration) are trying to find the source of the bacteria.
Farmers have stopped harvesting their spinach crops and supermarkets are no longer selling the vegetable as investigators seek to find the source of the problem. The Food and Drug Administration has cautioned consumers not to eat fresh or raw spinach.
It was not clear if the child had eaten the spinach mixed with yogurt before or after the warnings, Mason said.
The child died of hemolytic uremic syndrome, a sudden kidney failure that has been associated with E. coli 0157:H7 infection, Mason said.
Idaho officials will be talking to the family to gather more information about the illness and will be conducting tests of samples from the deceased boy.
To diagnose any foodborne illness, doctors have to test fecal samples, but often by the time a patient gets to the hospital the telltale bacteria, viruses or parasites have vanished.
But bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome are hallmarks of E. coli 0157:H7, a strain of the gut bacteria that infects 73,000 people and kills 61 in the United States each year.
Idaho officials expect results of the tests by next week.