Search for E. Coli Source Broadens
California Farm Inspections Increase As Grocers Pull Spinach From Shelves

By Annys Shin and Michael Rosenwald
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

State health officials in Ohio are investigating whether a second death is the result of a deadly outbreak of E. coli linked to fresh spinach, as federal regulators expanded their search for the source of the contamination.

The Food and Drug Administration and California state officials yesterday dispatched additional inspectors to farms in the state to examine irrigation, soil, and machinery, said David W. Acheson, the head of the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

The contaminated spinach was initially connected to Natural Selection Foods LLC, a producer in San Juan Bautista, Calif., that sells spinach and salads containing spinach under many brands, including Dole and Earthbound Farm. But the FDA is not limiting its probe to Natural Selection.

So far, 114 people in 21 states have become ill, including 18 who have experienced kidney failure. The first death was reported in Wisconsin, which has had 32 Escherichia coli cases, the highest number reported of any state. Seventy-five percent of the victims are women, Acheson said.

Virginia has one confirmed case, but state health department officials declined to provide further details, citing privacy concerns.

Of the 114 cases, FDA officials have detailed information about what 73 of the victims ate -- 66 ate spinach, including about 40 who ate bagged spinach, Acheson said.

"We don't know everything comes from Natural Selections. All the information we have says the implicated brands were grown in California. That could change," Acheson said. "We are still not ruling out the possibility that other spinach from other states may be implicated."

Natural Selection Foods said yesterday in a statement on its Web site that "based on its work" with California and FDA officials, its organic spinach has not been confirmed as the source of the E. coli outbreak.

But FDA officials refused to clear organic spinach and stressed that consumers should avoid all fresh spinach, organic and conventional, bagged and loose.

"We recognize a need to get our arms around this . . . and begin to focus on which spinach was not involved in this outbreak," Acheson said.

The FDA can recommend a recall of produce but cannot mandate one. While the Agriculture Department inspects meat processing facilities daily, the FDA does not inspect and test produce as frequently before it reaches grocery stores.

"Getting on a farm and testing things ahead of time is not a good use of resources," Acheson said.

Last November, the FDA sent a letter to the lettuce-growing industry urging it to improve produce safety. The letter came a month after Dole recalled several types of bagged salad mix as a result of an E. coli outbreak that sickened 11 people in Minnesota.

In April, lettuce growers drafted a set of best practices for farmers to prevent E. coli contamination. Last month, as part of "The Lettuce Safety Initiative" that was later expanded to include spinach, the FDA and California officials began inspecting farms for compliance with the best practices.

"The FDA is not saying this is the result of a few bad actors but truly an issue of 'we don't understand where this is coming from and we want to work collaboratively together,' " said Tim Chelling, a spokesman for United Fresh Produce Association, a trade group representing growers, shippers, retailers and processors.

Consumer advocates contend that self-regulation is not enough to protect consumers from contaminated produce.

"No agency has authority on the farm until an outbreak occurs," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "The FDA is responsible for everything other than meat and poultry . . . the FDA doesn't have the tools in place."

Enforcing a food recall relies on the efforts of grocery stores, restaurants and other food retailers, and it can be a significant expense for them. Ted Keany, a vice president of Keany Produce Co. of Landover, said he may be stuck with spinach and salad losses of up to $90,000 a week.

"We are legally bound to pay for it, even though we can't sell it," Keany said. "No one wants it."

In a survey of grocery stores in the Rockville-Bethesda area, a Washington Post reporter found two brands of Giant packaged salads containing baby spinach at the grocer's store on Old Georgetown Road. A manager of the store was alerted and, along with a produce staffer, immediately removed about a dozen bagged salads.

Giant spokesman Jamie Miller said "it should have been located" by the store's staff, but said scanners at the cash register would have rejected the purchase.

Safeway pulled O brand organic bagged spinach from its shelves and was holding it, spokesman Greg TenEyck said. Food Lion is destroying its stock of spinach, said food safety director James Ball. So is Whole Foods Market, said mid-Atlantic spokeswoman Sarah Kenney.

At organic Restaurant Nora, owner Nora Pouillon originally did not pull menu items with spinach. She orders most of her spinach from a co-op of 30 organic farmers in Pennsylvania and said there was no chance it came from California.

After numerous questions from customers, however, she decided to take spinach items off of the menu.

Staff writers Kim Hart, Chris Kirkham and Ylan Q. Mui contributed to this report.