A health and medicine blog with Todd Ackerman and Anita Hassan

Outbreak: Beware bagged spinach


It’s a dark day in MedBlog’s household. Salads made from bagged spinach, practically the only green thing we eat, are banned until further notice.

There’s a serious outbreak of E. coli, a nasty bug in cow manure that sometimes finds its way into produce. The disease has sickened at least 49 people so far, killing one, and an FDA official said, “It’s increasing by the day. We may be at

the peak, we may not. We’re giving preliminary data here.”

So far, Texas is not one of the eight states involved. Read more about it here, on Promed mail, and check back for updates.

The strain of E. coli in the spinach outbreak is a virulent one that can cause bloody diarrhea and kidney failure. In a notorious outbreak in 1993, 4 children died from the infection after eating contaminated hamburgers at Jack in the Box.

I can say my children are at zero risk — no spinach leaf ever passes their lips. Federal health investigators have found no smoking gun, so to speak, but for now we’re going back to wash-it-yourself spinach.

Categories: Uncategorized

7 Responses

  1. Bob says:

    This isn’t a plug, but Sams Club has a awesome Newmans Own Organic Spring Mix,or what ever season.

    A variety of green leaf. Even the container it comes

    in, is made from corn which they say, can go into the

    compost pile. A little less than four bucks for a decent size container.

  2. Kimberly says:

    I am wondering, why is this warning/the contamination limited to bagged spinach? If, as speculated, manure used as fertilizer might be to blame, wouldn’t that affect both bagged AND bunch spinach? Assuming, as I am, that there are not seperate fields for spinach sold in bunches and that sold bagged.

    Further, the FDA states that washing will not eliminate the contamination, because the organisms are “too tightly attached”, and that would apply to bunch spinach as well.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it seems that bunch spinach will still be available (though perhaps not in some stores) and I’m not avoiding it (had some steamed with dinner last night and some raw in my salad the day before. Bought a bunch my last trip to the store since it looked better and was less costly than the bagged they had)

    I am just wondering what the reasoning is behind only targeting the bagged variety, since all spinach could be contaminated and if washing doesn’t help….

  3. O. C. Jones says:

    Their saying it very likely may have come from the water supply. Then spread to the plants from irrigation. It’s in, not on, the spinach.

    So your wash-it-yourself . . .

    In Friday nights, CBS Evening News, they showed spinach being washed. Say no one can wash it as well at home.

    You can see the CBS Evening News, anytime:

  4. Leigh says:


    Investigators are targeting the bagged variety because that’s the food all the sick people have in common. I don’t know if they’ve narrowed it down to specific brands, or to specific processing plants. Sometimes it can be something as simple as a particular worker having walked into a processing plant with dirty shoes.

    It’s really a miracle, when you think of it, that we don’t have MORE of this kind of thing, don’t you think?


  5. Smukke says:

    It is a miracle, Leigh, except that these ag companies go to great lengths — for obvious liability reasons — to avoid it. I feel sad for the farmers who are going to lose their shirts this year because they bet on spinach. All it took was for one ‘bad farmer’ to decide to use bad water or fertilizer, and the whole market is destroyed. All that food, gone to waste. It really kills me.

    It also kills me to read, “In Ohio, state health officials said they were investigating the death of a 23-month-old girl who was sickened by E. coli to determine whether the case was related to the outbreak. The girl’s mother said she often buys bagged spinach.” Maybe she does, but do you really feed a 2-year-old bagged spinach? Why does it sound like somebody trying to take advantage of an expected class-action lawsuit? Yes, I’m a skeptic.

    Unfortunately, I’m also a spinach-lover (pout)

  6. DJ says:

    I understand E-Coli comes from excrement whether it be animals or people. Has anyone ever thought that there may not be good sanitation practiced by ILLEGALS in the fields? They swim through sewage water sometimes to become a uninvited guest. Correct me if I am wrong about where E-Coli comes from or maybe illegals are A-OK. Do companies furnish convenient toilets for workers? Probably not.

  7. Leigh says:


    E. coli 0157:H7 resides in the intestines of cattle, but can be spread from feces of an infected person.

    The companies go to great lengths to keep pathogens out of their food, otherwise they are rapidly out of business. So I’m sure employees don’t squat in the fields.

    Poor sanitation is not limited to illegals.