California organic-food company linked to widespread E. coli scare

WASHINGTON — A California natural-foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak involving packaged spinach that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100 others. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials said they had received reports of illness in 19 states, including two cases in Washington state.

The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, based in San Juan Bautista, Calif., and the company has voluntarily recalled products containing spinach. The company, which bills itself as the largest grower and shipper of organic produce in North America, also operates under the name Earthbound Farm and packages spinach for more than 30 companies.

FDA officials stressed that the bacteria had not been isolated in products sold by Natural Selection Foods but that the link was established by patient accounts of what they had eaten before becoming ill.

An investigation was continuing.

"It is possible that the recall and the information will extend beyond Natural Selection Foods and involve other brands and other companies, at other dates," said Dr. David Acheson, the chief medical officer with the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Natural Selection Foods said it was cooperating with federal and state health officials to identify the source of the contamination and had stopped shipping all fresh spinach products.

State health officials received the first reports of illness Aug. 25, and the FDA was informed Wednesday, Acheson said.

The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get rid of the tenacious bug, though thorough cooking can kill it.

"We're waiting for the all-clear. In the meantime, Popeye the Sailor Man and this family will not be eating bagged spinach," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.

The Tennessee university's medical center was treating a 17-year-old Kentucky girl for E. coli infection. That case originally was listed as being from Tennessee, but federal health officials changed it to Kentucky.

Not all strains of E. coli cause illness: E. coli O157:H7, the strain involved in the current outbreak, was first recognized as a cause of illness in 1982. That strain causes an estimated 73,000 cases of infection, including 61 deaths, each year in the United States, according to the CDC.

The strain is the same one that caused the high-profile outbreak associated with Jack in the Box hamburgers that sickened hundreds and killed three Washington children.

Wisconsin accounted for 29 illnesses, about one-third of the cases, including the death, a 77-year-old woman.

Other states reporting cases were: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The bug has sickened at least 94 people across the nation, the CDC said. The agency said that 29 people have been hospitalized, 14 with kidney failure.

The two Washington cases occurred in Island and Cowlitz counties, a state health official said.

Neither person was hospitalized and both have recovered, Dr. Jo Hofmann, state epidemiologist for communicable diseases, said Friday.

The Cowlitz County resident, a man in his 40s, consumed packaged spinach and became ill in late August. An Island County resident in her 20s was diagnosed early this month. Hofmann did not know how the spinach was purchased in Island County.

Hofmann said the State Department of Health has sent alerts to all local health departments. Public Health — Seattle & King County has notified health-care providers in the county of the nationwide alert about tainted spinach, said James Apa, a department spokesman.

Apa also said records of recent cases of E. coli illness in King County have been examined and none had DNA matching that of the bacteria in the current outbreak linked to spinach.

Several local stores and supermarket chains pulled all their packaged spinach off the shelves Friday.

Safeway and PCC Natural Markets said customers can return opened spinach packages.

FDA officials said they issued the nationwide consumer alert without waiting to identify the still-unknown source of the tainted spinach.

"Early is good," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food-safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, adding that the alert may have prevented hundreds more cases.

The FDA's top food expert stressed the importance of stopping the bacterium at its source, since rinsing spinach won't eliminate the risk. "If you wash it, it is not going to get rid of it," said Robert Brackett, director of the agency's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition.

E. coli lives in the intestines of cattle and other animals and typically is spread by the use of manure as a fertilizer for produce.

When ingested, the bug can cause diarrhea, often with bloody stools. Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, although some people — including the very young and old — can develop a form of kidney failure that often leads to death.

Sources of the bacterium include uncooked produce, raw milk, unpasteurized juice, contaminated water and meat, especially undercooked or raw hamburger.

Meanwhile, a Salem, Ore., woman who says eating packaged spinach caused her case of E. coli infection filed a federal lawsuit against Dole Food seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.

While Dole is named in the lawsuit by Gwyn Wellborn, 27, the exact source has not been pinpointed.

"She had an acute illness; she had a fairly rough time of it," said Drew Falkenstein, a lawyer with the Seattle law firm Marler Clark, which specializes in food-contamination cases and filed Wellborn's lawsuit.

Wellborn bought the spinach on or about Aug. 21 and ate it over several days, according to her lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Seattle Times reporters Warren King and Tan Vinh contributed to this report.

Material from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.