Prepackaged iceberg lettuce from California has been linked to two separate outbreaks of \o7E. coli \f7that sickened more than 150 Taco Bell and Taco John's customers late last year on the East Coast and in the Midwest, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
The news comes just months after officials fingered prepackaged California spinach in an outbreak of \o7E. coli \f7O157:H7 that sickened more than 200 people and killed three.
It deals another blow to California's leafy greens industry, which dominates the nation's supply. The iceberg lettuce industry alone harvested $750 million worth of greens in 2005 -- nearly 75% of the nation's crop. Most of it was grown in the Greater Salinas and Central valleys.
"It just adds more fuel to the fire of the need to address this," said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for the FDA's food safety center.
The recent outbreaks apparently have vindicated concerns he voiced last September, when he unenthusiastically announced his agency's decision to lift a warning against eating fresh bagged spinach from California's Central Coast. He pointedly noted at the time that of the 20 \o7E. coli \f7outbreaks from lettuce and spinach since 1995, nine were linked to the Greater Salinas Valley.
"Until some fundamental fixes are put in place in the areas where this contamination is happening," Acheson said during a conference call with reporters, "there is obviously a concern that two months from now we'll be having the same conversation, talking about outbreak No. 21."
And, indeed, outbreaks No. 21 and 22 occurred about two months later. People began falling sick after eating at the fast food chains Taco Bell and Taco John's in November. In the Taco Bell outbreak, which involved restaurants in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, seventy-one fell ill and 53 were hospitalized. The Taco John's outbreak involved three eateries in Minnesota and Iowa. Eighty-one were sickened, including 26 who were hospitalized.
Wider area affected
Outbreaks 21 and 22 also showed that problems in California extend beyond the Greater Salinas Valley, where the tainted spinach was grown.
Taco Bell's tainted lettuce was traced, via packaging, to farms in the Central Valley, although no specific sources have been named. The Taco John's produce was traced both to the Central Valley and to the coast south of Salinas.
