The E.coli outbreak is the 20th time in a decade that leafy greens from Monterey County have been contaminated with E. coli, and government officials already had warned growers and processors in the Salinas Valley to improve their conditions.
Update from PhysOrg
Many creeks and streams near the region’s spinach fields are known to contain 12,000 or more E. coli organisms per 100 milliliters of water — 30 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard. California officials are currently studying ways to bring the Salinas River watershed into compliance with the EPA’s rules.
Another PhysOrg clip:
Sensor to Detect E.coli
As the Food and Drug Administration takes days to track down the source of the E. coli outbreak, Dr. Raj Mutharasan is optimizing a sensor that can enable growers to do the job themselves in a few minutes.
The nine bags of baby spinach now linked by DNA testing to the national E. coli outbreak all held conventional rather than organic produce and all were sold under the Dole label, state health officials said late September. LATimes