Germany backtracks on sprouts for E. coli source

AP via Yahoo! Finance ^ | June 06,2011 | Juergen Baetz

[AnAmericanAbroad]

BERLIN (AP) -- In their second major retraction in a week, German officials said initial tests provided no evidence that sprouts from an organic farm in northern Germany were the cause of the deadly E. coli outbreak. One U.S. expert called the German investigation "a disaster."

The surprise U-turn came only a day after the same state agency, Lower Saxony's agriculture ministry, held a news conference to announce that sprouts from the organic Gaertnerhof farm in the northern village of Bienenbuettel were suspected to be the cause of the outbreak. The ministry shut down the farm, recalled all its produce and sent an alert urging Germans not to eat any more sprouts.

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Rather embarrasing. And here I was having fun mocking all my bio-fruit grazying compadres here in Berlin, happily asserting that us dedicated carnivores have happier, fuller lives.....

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Make that grazing.

[Paladin2]

Just wait until they find it came from the local mosque.

[AnAmericanAbroad]

That’s a bit of a stretch for me. Actually, the Germans really do use ‘nightsoil’ for fertilizer (I asked). It’s considered “natural”, doncha know? Personally, I don’t think it’s so good of an idea to be using human feces as fertilizer, but then again, I’m not an expert in such matters.

Besides, quite a few of the Muslims, at least here in Berlin, are vegetarians, because they’re Sufis from Turkey. Of course, the more hardcore jihactivists (mostly Arabs)don’t consider Sufis to be Muslims, so maybe they won’t care knocking off a few.

[Elendur]

yep. but when they do, they won’t report it...
cases seem to drop off the radar, when certain names show up as suspects...

[Spudx7]

Might even be unintentional...their bathroom hygiene habits leave much to be desired.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Actually, the Germans really do use ‘nightsoil’ for fertilizer

Yep, heard about it from a friend of mine who was stationed there back in the 80's. Said you did not want to be driving through the German countryside when they were spreading it around.

[dr_lew]

I don’t see how humans could be the carriers of this new strain, which of course is extremely virulent in the human body. I understand that cattle can carry it without becoming ill.

But the strain was virtually unknown except in the victims of this outbreak. Didn’t I read that the only previous known outbreak of this strain was in Korea? And didn’t China very helpfully offer to sequence the genome of this strain, and then do so in record time, illustrating the very advanced state of their capability in this area?

Hey, wait a second!