His video aired this week on the NBC network affiliate NBC26 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Despite the uncontroverted scientific evidence that raw milk harbors E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, Salmonella and other potentially deadly pathogens, producers of raw milk and people who buy it are clamoring for a reversal of the ban.

I gave the reporter my insights based on all the families we represent who are in physical and emotional pain from bouts of infection caused by contaminated raw milk and other unpasteurized dairy products.

Here’s the NBC26 news clip:

Ms. Grabowski, a college freshman in New York, is one of 26 confirmed and 7 probable cases related to this outbreak. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

As of May 20, 2010, a total of 26 confirmed and 7 probable cases related to this outbreak have been reported from 5 states since March 1, 2010. The number of ill persons identified in each state with this strain is: MI (11 confirmed and 2 probable), NY (5 confirmed and 2 probable), OH (8 confirmed and 3 probable), PA (1 confirmed), and TN (1 confirmed). The reported cases in Tennessee and Pennsylvania do not reflect expansion of the outbreak but retrospective identification of cases using the PulseNet system – these cases are part of the original cluster due to the original implicated lot of lettuce from March.

As a result of her E. coli O145 illness, Ms. Grabowski developed Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), a potentially lethal condition known to cause severe kidney damage, neurologic deficits and hypertension.

This outbreak, another one involving leafy green vegetables, points to the need for significant regulation of an industry responsible for repeated outbreaks.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its final report on the outbreak on May 21, but so far refused to identify the farm at which the implicated romaine lettuce was grown.

Every case and every client is unique and deserves the benefit of a close attorney-client bond.

I recently wrote about the long-term prognosis for people who suffer hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) induced by E. coli O157:H7. This is because many people who suffer this devastating illness have life-long and very severe medical problems that show up long after the acute phase of the illness is over.

Many HUS victims are children. Their parents suffer along with them. The fear and uncertainty of loving a child with chronic medical problems is a constant stress that intrudes on the parents and siblings of a child with HUS.

A recent medical journal article supports the notion that the impact of HUS is not limited to the disease survivor. The paper, Emotional and Behavioral Changes in Parents of Children Affected by Hemolytic-Uremic Syndrome Associated With Verocytotoxin-Producing Escherichia Coli: A Qualitative Analysis, concludes:

This [data] demonstrated that intense emotional distress was commonplace at the 1-year follow-up, demonstrating that emotional strain is present long after the acute phase of the child’s illness. The finding that fear of unknown long-term repercussions, relapse, and reinfection were still causing distress and rumination 1 year later suggests that dealing with an infected child is chronic stress…

On a personal note, my wife and I are the parents of 25 year-old young man with a genetic disorder characterized by physical and cognitive challenges. Loving a child with medical issues is one of the most challenging problems faced by parents. It affects virtually every family decision and not a day goes by without its consequences reverberating throughout the home.

Are parents compensated for this emotional stress? From a legal standpoint that depends on the law of the state in which the illness occurred but, sadly, it’s not enough.

Many states only allow recovery for the diseased individual. Some allow recovery, but only in cases in which the parent was in the “zone of danger” (meaning they were at risk for injury as well).

Fewer still recognize the obvious harm and loss that parents suffer when their children face a life of medical problems related to HUS. It’s never right when common sense and the medical literature recognizes a problem for which the law offers little or no remedy.

This outbreak involved blade- or needle-tenderized beef that few people realize carries an E. coli risk similar to hamburger. Our office issued this press release today to keep the issue in the public light:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cleveland, OH – (Business Wire) - Attorney Fred Pritzker has been retained by an 18 year-old woman from Ashtabula, Ohio who suffered E. coli O157:H7 poisoning and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) linked to adulterated beef products recalled by National Steak and Poultry, an Owasso, Oklahoma meat processor. The young woman was hospitalized for weeks and almost died. She was on dialysis for months and now suffers from decreased kidney function and hypertension. She faces a lifetime of medical problems and medical bills that should have been prevented.

National Steak and Poultry recalled 248,000 pounds of beef products on December 24, 2009, following an investigation that found an association between the company’s steaks and an E. coli O157 outbreak in Ohio and other states.

The recalled beef products, so-called “non-intact beef products,” were mechanically tenderized. This usually involves putting rougher cuts of beef through a machine that utilizes a set of needles or blades which pierce the meat and break down connective tissue.

Unfortunately, this process is also known to push E. coli O157:H7 on the surface of the raw meat into its center (so-called “translocation”).  If the meat is then served rare or medium rare, its center is not heated sufficiently to kill off the E. coli O157:H7.

According to Fred Pritzker,  “This is at least the fourth E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with mechanically tenderized beef.”

“Meat companies and restaurants don’t warn consumers about mechanical tenderization and the dangers that go with it,” Pritzker said.  “They don’t want consumers to be able to make informed choices because they’re afraid it will hurt sales.”

According to Pritzker, this outbreak highlights the need for a number of changes including

• Requiring producers to use microbiological decontamination technologies on meat products before mechanical tenderization
• Requiring labeling changes that alert consumers to the existence of and dangers associated with mechanical tenderization
• Creating and mandating public outreach programs alerting consumers to this practice

Attorney Fred Pritzker represents E. coli victims nationwide. He can be reached at 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE).  His offices are in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

There are preliminary indications that the current restaurant steak E. coli outbreak — which may have peaked in November — involves meat injected with tenderizing ingredients, which would classify them as non-intact. Between 1999 and 2003, five of six steak E. coli outbreaks associated with non-intact beef  involved moisture-enhanced steaks, according to a 2003 study at Colorado State University.

Injections and mechanical blade tenderizing techniques may enhance flavor of a steak, but it can be dangerous to consumers when brine is contaminated and when meat isn’t cooked well. That is why in 1999 the federal government lumped non-intact beef together with hamburger, meaning they are considered adulterated if they carry E. coli O157:H7 — a virulent pathogen that can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP)

The risks associated with non-intact beef were outlined nicely in a 1996 Masters Thesis by Kansas State University graduate student Sarah Sporing. She noted that many restaurant cooks mistakenly handle injected and blade-tenderized steaks as whole cuts that can be served rare or medium rare. When cooking whole cuts, surface contamination can be killed merely by cooking the meat until it changes color.

They often don’t realize that injections translocate surface E. coli into the muscle, where it can survive if the center is undercooked. Sporing’s study showed that a standard food industry blade tenderizer transferred 3- to 4 percent of surface E. coli to the center of the meat. Injections of cross-contaminated flavoring can do the same thing.

Sporing studied the thermal destruction of bacteria in the center of E. coli steaks and found that oven broiling was more effective (shorter cooking time) at killing the pathogens than grilling the meat on a commercial gas grill or cooking it in an electric skillet. But regardless of the cooking method, she determined that the population of E. coli O157:H7 in non-intact steak could be reduced to the same safety level as intact beef if cooked to at least 140 degrees.

“To reduce risks… it is in the best interest of the meat and food service industries to encourage the use of thermometers to determine degree of doneness in all meat products,” not just ground beef, Sporing wrote.

E. coli lawyers at Pritzker Olson have been contacted by survivors of this non-intact steak E. coli outbreak. If you believe you or a loved one have suffered damages from this potential outbreak or know anything about it, please contact us at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete our online contact and information form on the side of this web page.

Our firm is one of the few in the country that practices extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. We have the resources and experience to collect compensation from the parties responsible for this outbreak, including meat suppliers and restaurant corporations.  If you contact us, we will provide a free case consultation. If we agree to take your case, you owe us nothing until you win.

This outbreak could have been prevented and our firm actively supports a variety of initiatives to strengthen the food safety system in America, which hasn’t undergone broad, meaningful change in 70 years. One of our clients testified this year before a Congressional food safety panel in Washington, D.C., and another client is featured in the current issue of Consumer Reports magazine that exposes widespread bacterial hazards in poultry.

That excellent advice came in 2005 when Minnesota public health investigators wrote about 12 confirmed cases of E. coli O157:H7 from non-intact, blade-tenderized frozen steaks that had been sold by door-to-door vendors in Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, North Dakota and Kansas. Three of the victims were hospitalized, including a 52-year-old patient who was treated for 25 days after developing hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), and was discharged with “residual neurological deficits.”

Four years later and our national food safety law firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, is investigating a possible steak E. coli outbreak associated with at least one large United States restaurant chain. Nothing official has come out as of yet, but we have been contacted by E. coli O157:H7 survivors who may have been infected by meat injected by tenderizing ingredients. The outbreak is believed to have reached multiple states.

These injections and other mechanical tenderizing techniques may enhance flavor but can be dangerous to consumers when brine is contaminated and when meat isn’t cooked well. Even some restaurant cooks may mistakenly believe that all steaks can be safely served rare in the middle. That’s true with intact, untouched steaks because any bacteria is on the surface and is easily killed.

But when steaks are tenderized with brine or mechanical blading, the processes can drive pathogens into the center of the meat, like hamburger. In those cases, an instant-read themometer should be used to ensure proper cooking.

Here’s what the 2005 report said: ” These processing methods create new challenges for prevention of O157 infections. Food regulatory officials should re-evaluate safety issues presented by nonintact steak products, such as microbiologic hazards of processing methods, possible labeling to distinguish intact from non-intact steaks and education of the public and commercial food estabshments on the increased risk associated with undercooked nonintact steaks.”

On Halloween, Fairbank Farms recalled some 270 tons of ground beef  that could be contaminated with the outbreak strain of this pathogen. State and federal health officials are cautioning consumers to check their freezers for the recalled ground beef, which was produced September 14, 15 and 16 and is marked with “EST 492″ inside the USDA mark of inspection. For a complete list of retailers who sold the hamburger meat, click here.

E. coli O157:H7 was banned from fresh ground beef in the United States in 1994 and an inspection monitoring program was started. Consumers are not to blame when contaminated meat ends up in their kitchen and sickens a family member. But whether preparing a home-cooked meal of hamburgers or ordering a hamburger from a restaurant, you should always ensure for your own safety that patties have been cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees. The simple rule is this: Color is not an indicator of doneness. An instant-read food thermometer will do the job.

Prior to June 1997, consumers who did not use a food thermometer were advised by USDA to cook ground beef patties
until the center and the cooked-out juices were no longer pink. Consumers were also advised to look for a firm “cooked” texture rather than a softer “raw or rare” texture in the meat.

However, research at Kansas State University in 1995 raised questions regarding the  visual checks.  Consequently, in June 1997, USDA issued a press release advising consumers to use a food thermometer when cooking ground beef patties, and not to rely on the internal color of the meat. Cooking to an internal temperature of 160 °F throughout kills E. coli O157:H7.

We now know that ferric pigment in ground beef can make the meat look brown even when raw. This depends on the exposure to oxygen and other factors in storage.

When ground beef is cooked, it changes color from red to pink to brown. If the meat is already brown, it will not change color during cooking. According to the USDA, recent research has shown some ground beef patties to look well-done at internal temperatures as low as 131 °F. The USDA’s own research has shown that more than 25 percent of fresh ground beef patties turned brown prematurely.

Conversely, some extra lean ground beef can still be pink on the inside when cooked to 160 degrees.

When eating out, ask your server if ground beef patties have been cooked to at least 155 °F for 15 seconds, as
recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Food Code. If not, send it back.

Reminders like this are important for the prevention of illness due to E. coli O157:H7, especially during an outbreak involving a half million pounds of ground beef. Our law firm has seen the devastation time and again brought by adulterated, undercooked hamburger.

E. coli HUS, in particular, is an extremely serious condition. It can cause kidney failure, brain damage, strokes, and seizures. The most likely victims are children under 5 and adults over 60.

Two of the students who attended the camp have tested positive for E. coli O157:H7, a serious illness that can lead to severe dehydration, hemorrhagic colitis and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), the leading cause of kidney failure in children around the world.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the USDA are investigating foods at the camp as the likely source of this illness, according to the Rhode Island Department of Health.

The USDA involvement suggests that the source of this outbreak is contaminated meat served at Camp Bournedale. If so, these children were sickened because the slaughterhouse and/or the processor of the meat allowed cattle feces to get into the meat and did not do enough testing to discover the contamination. In addition, the camp, if it is involved, did not cook the meat well enough to kill the E. coli bacteria. Many adults failed these children.

“The American public should not have to guess about the safety of food served to children,” said Attorney Fred Pritzker, one of the nation’s most experienced practitioners of foodborne illness litigation.

Pritzker’s national food safety law firm has represented victims of most major E. coli outbreaks in the United States. The firm also recently represented families whose children suffered Salmonella poisoning at an environmental camp in Madison, New Hampshire. The cause of that outbreak was contaminated pudding.

“More resources must be devoted to federal food safety. The current system is undermined by too much fragmentation of responsibility and not enough coordination between federal, state and local agencies,” Pritzker said.

“One also has to wonder if microbiological testing is lax,” Pritzker said. “Ground beef and other meat products should not be allowed to leave the manufacturer unless their safety is confirmed. Eating a hamburger should not be a high-risk activity.”

Pritzker Olsen, P.A., is one of the few law firms in the United States that practices extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. The firm has collected millions of dollars on behalf of victims of E. coli poisoning and other foodborne illnesses. For more information, contact Fred Pritzker at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or email Fred at fhp@pritzkerlaw.com.

Now a graduate student at the University of Saskatchewan is said to have created a vaccine to reduce other types of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli bacteria, or non-0157 STECs.  Though E. coli O157 is the most prevalent STEC bacteria in North America, others are more dominant around the world. In Europe, O26 is the most common. In South America, it is O111. And there have been outbreaks involving 026 and 0111 in the United States.

The breakthrough by student microbiologist David Asper, which the University of Saskatchewan says is soon to be published, still must withstand three to five years of intensive testing in mice and cattle. And further more, like the vaccine already being sold for E. coli O157:H7 by Epitopix LLC, it must gain market acceptance by cattle ranchers to do any good for humans.

But it is somewhat heartening to families who have experienced severe illness or death from E. coli ground beef outbreaks that science continues to work on solutions. Hamburger E. coli outbreaks invariably bring cases of STEC infection that lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening disease that can cause renal failure, strokes, brain damage, spinal cord injury, heart problems and hemorrhaging. Children under 5 are the most susceptible and persons over 60 are most likely to die from the poison.

Asper’s vaccine would work by preventing non-O157 STEC organisms from attaching to the intestines of cattle. The bacteria commonly live in the hind guts of cattle without doing them harm. They can contaminate meat during the slaughtering process, when the intestines are nicked or when feces compacted on the animals’ hides spreads to carcasses. The microbes get ground into the meat during the making of hamburger and can survive in the core of the patty if the internal cooking temperature of the hamburger doesn’t reach 160 degrees.

In the U.S., E. coli O157:H7  is banned from ground beef, making it an adulterant. But in one of the many safety gaps that exist in our food safety system, no such classification is given to non-O157:H7 STECs.

Due to improved detection methods, cases of non-O157 E. coli infection are on the rise, increasing the importance of having the second-generation vaccine. “We can protect humans by vaccinating animals before they come in contact with the pathogen. I think that’s very important work that will lead to a lot fewer infections,” Asper said in The Star Phoenix newspaper.

Vilsack said the Times report by Michael Moss, which focused on a 2007 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to Cargill hamburger patties, is boosting his department’s effort to fight E. coli.

Especially in children, cancer patients and older adults, the pathogen can lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), an attack on red blood cells that can result in kidney failure, heart problems, strokes, brain damage and spinal cord injury. One of the victims of the Cargill ground beef E. coli outbreak was a young dance instructor who suffered paralysis after contracting E. coli HUS.

E. coli O157:H7 was banned from ground beef in 1994, but grinding plants aren’t required to test incoming beef trim and scrap that is used to make ground beef. In fact, as the Times story showed, some big slaughterhouses won’t sell meat to grinders if the plants test the shipments for E. coli. That’s because a positive result would likely mandate a multi-customer recall of the supplier’s meat.

U.S. Representative Louise M. Slaughter, D- New York, and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, read parts of  The New York Times article on  the House floor this week and said the lingering pathogens in meat and the industry’s use of antibiotics were threatening to harm exports of beef to Europe. Rep. Slaughter is a microbiologist.

“We’ve got to get people to understand what’s going on here,” she said.

One of the big moments in the story was Costco’s food safety director saying industry giant Tyson wouldn’t sell beef trim to Costco’s grinding operation because Costco’s policy is to test incoming shipments. Tyson did not respond to the statement directly.

A follow-up story in the Times said Costco has reached an agreement with Tyson that allows Costco to test the trimmings before they are mixed with those from other suppliers.

The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. So we don’t do that.”

Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), told the Times that his agency could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers.

“I have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,” Dr. Petersen said.

In damage-control mode after Peterson’s comment was aired in the Times story, Vilsack said in his prepared statement that public health and food safety was USDA’s  priority. But he didn’t address whether USDA would consider mandating E. coli tests of ingredients that arrive at grinding plants.

The Times story was an important national story because it showed that eating ground beef is still a gamble. There have been 16 ground beef E. coli outbreaks in the past three years. In the Cargill E. coli hamburger outbreak of 2007, the company recalled 845,000 pounds of ground beef produced at its plant in Butler, Wisconsin, after people began to fall ill.

The “Angus Beef Patties” found to be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 were really made with cheap, fatty beef trim, scrap and other cheap beef ingredients that came from multiple slaughterhouses, one as far away as Uruguay. The Times story went back and traced where the ingredients came from, noting that Cargill used beef parts most likely to come in contact with E. coli during the slaughter process.

Click here to see the original Times story.