International Specialty Supply
Supplying Sprout Companies Throughout the World
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International Specialty Supply Supplying Sprout Companies Throughout the World
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820 East 20th Street Cookeville, TN 38501 USA 931 526 1106
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Manure
Use Common, But is it Safe? E.coli Cases Raise Experts' Suspicions About
Longtime Agriculture Practice August
5, 2000 Few things are, according to this story, less intriguing than animal manure. But manure is used to grow fruits and vegetables, and it may find its way into ground meat. In the past few years, the link between manure and potentially dangerous E. coli bacteria has, the story says, prompted closer scrutiny in the quest to keep food safe. Some bacterial infection outbreaks have been traced to tainted vegetables, such as alfalfa sprouts and lettuce, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Food safety and agriculture experts are analyzing the longtime practice of spreading cattle manure on fields to enrich and stabilize it, and studying whether manure is safely handled at farms and slaughterhouses. If properly composted - or aged - manure is considered safe for fruits and vegetables. If not, it can harbor potentially dangerous bacteria that live in cattle and other animals, including the virulent E. coli O157:H7, which has been linked to an infection outbreak in Milwaukee, and was recognized as a cause of illness less than 20 years ago. The Milwaukee outbreak so far has resulted in one child's death, 22 people being hospitalized and at least 58 sickened because they ate tainted food at two local Sizzler restaurants in mid-July. Though most of the people infected had eaten watermelon, meat was believed to be the original source of the bacteria. Fruit and vegetable growers have used manure as fertilizer for decades, if not centuries. It's an especially common practice in Wisconsin, since cattle prolifically produce manure. An ABC television "20/20" program that aired Feb. 5 and again July 7 suggested that organic produce could be more prone to E. coli contamination because organic farmers rely on natural materials, such as manure, to fertilize their crops. The story says that the rapidly growing organic industry touts organic foods as being safer than conventional foods because chemicals aren't used. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that it has no conclusive evidence to say organic is more or less safe than other growing methods. The 20/20 report was angrily criticized by environmental groups and organic advocates, and one group called this week for the reporter to be fired. Peter Slade, research director at the National Center for Food Safety and Technology in Chicago - a consortium of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the FDA, and food industry leaders such as Kraft and Nestle, was quoted as saying, "There's no smoking gun, because I don't think there's any solid research" on organic practices. Those who support organics don't want to sponsor that kind of research," adding he is in the process of proposing it. The National Organic Standards Board, a panel that advises the U.S. Department of Agriculture on national standards for organic production, recommends that raw manure should not be applied less than 120 days before harvesting foods likely to be eaten raw, or less than 90 days before harvesting foods protected by a husk, pod or shell. One area non-organic vegetable grower said she's become wary of using manure in recent years because "you just don't know if you can keep it from getting in the food chain." "That's the controversy," said Leona Robran of Waterford. She and her husband, Ralph, used a small amount of horse manure to fertilize soil years ago, Robran said from her farmers market stand at Zeidler Park in downtown Milwaukee. An estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur in the United States each year as a result of the E. coli infection, according to the CDC. The story says that the CDC linked cow manure to E. coli in an October 1992 case in which a 2-year-old boy in rural Maine died after developing hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a potentially fatal disease caused by E. coli that also killed a 3-year-old girl in the Milwaukee outbreak. The source of bacteria that sickened the Maine boy was a family vegetable garden fertilized throughout the summer with manure from a cow and calf. The bacteria were passed from a 39-year-old woman to three children, including the child who died, through improper hand washing. In Illinois, more than 300 people became seriously ill with E. coli bacterial infections after a Labor Day weekend party last year in a cow pasture, even though the landowner had tried to thoroughly clean the area beforehand. And in New York last year, a 3-year-old girl and a 79-year-old man died in an E. coli outbreak after attending a county fair where runoff from cow manure got into a water well, sickening more than 600 people. Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, was cited as saying manure tends to be a quality control issue at farms and slaughterhouses and she noted that most cases of E. coli illness are linked to meat, adding, "You just don't hear about (E. coli) coming from manure on vegetables." |