Posted on 10/12/2009 9:35:06 AM PDT by Chet 99
Who’s talking about banning anything? And provide some substantiation to that claim about e-coli. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen who’s tried to defend the honor of e-coli bacteria. maybe you need a hobby.
In 1999, my two year old twin daughter was ravaged by e.coli poisoning. She went through 24 hours of expolosive vomitting and bloody diarrhea just for starters. She was left so weak, she couldn’t lift her head for almost two weeks. Two days after the onset, she had just enough energy to get out of bed and have a few crackers. I thought she was getting better.
That afternoon though, she took a turn for the worse. She was turning ashen, and I told my wife I thought she was dying. She was dying. Her kidneys were damaged by the e.coli toxins and the damaged structures were destroying her red blood cells. The damaged red blood cells were clogging her kidneys as she headed into full kidney failure. When she arrived at the emergency room, there was no doubt which of the twins was severely ill. She was ashen, severely anemic, and she was in full kidney failure.
I’ll never forget the look of satisfaction the doctors and interns had when they announced they had a diagnosis, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome. They could only deal with it as just another case. They were rightly proud of their quick diagnosis, and we later understood just how important that was. They immediately took her to intensive care, and started her with a transfusion. For a week, they gave her only enough water to survive, and the worst day of my life was when they inserted a shunt into her leg to hook her up to the dialysis machine.
She survived. After two weeks in the hospital, she didn’t have the strength to stand. She was back in diapers, but slowly, she got better and regained her strength. She now faces a lifetime risk of hypertension and kidney failure because of an unknown amount of damage left by the e.coli. We realized e.coli had also hit her twin sister just a few days earlier, but fortunately it only caused her a bad bought of diarrhea. This could have happened to both of them.
As I read this article ten years later, it’s disappointing that nothing has changed. In our case, we never knew where the e.coli came from. Was it from a hamburger? Was it cross contamination from raw hamburger at home or from a restaurant? We’ll never know. I will always know from now on, all to well, that I’m making life and death decisions when I handle ground beef in my home. Have I handled the ground beef safely enough? Is that hamburger really cooked well enough? Those questions will always haunt me.
We haven’t done enough. Children shouldn’t face death or what my daughter went through to enjoy a hamburger. I don’t want beef regulated off our tables, but I also don’t want a powerful beef lobby to keep anything from being done about these well documented problems that we’ve known about for years.
Don’t want to get sick?
COOK THE HAMBURGER! DONE! If God had wanted you to eat RAW meat he wouldn’t have invented fire!
Over 50,000 Americans a year are injured in bathtubs and a few hundred of them die, but so far I haven’t heard any calls to declare war on Big Plumbing.
I don’t think anyone has suggested that war be declared on anyone... but too many people foolishly believe something is safe because the “government” inspects it.
As always, caveat emptor.
You and your ilk, Pal. They briefly banned sunny-side-up eggs here in NJ some years back. (Not e coli, but the same idea. I don't even like eggs, BTW.) It's very difficult to get a rare hamburger at most places these days because some young (otherwise healthy?) girl died after eating a hamburger in Utah about ten years ago. (That was e coli supposedly.) I'll probably die too after eating a rare hamburger. I love 'em. But thanks to folks like you, all the fast food places, most of the chains, and sports arena type places won't make them that way anymore.
ML/NJ
Are you an insane clown or do just play one on FreeRepublic?
If you warn him about the dangers of mosquito bites while out camping, he’ll interpret this as your call for a ban on camping rather than some prudent advice to buy bug spray.
LOL! He can eat all the raw hamburger meat he wants for all I care. All I want is a reasonable effort at delivering e coli free meat products to my local grocery.
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