saladbar.jpgMike Stobbe, AP medical writer, wrote following a news conference by USDA, FDA and CDC officials, that four people in the U.S. might be linked to the food poisoning outbreak in Europe. All four were in northern Germany in May and officials are confident that they were infected with E. coli in that country. Three of them — two women and a man — are hospitalized with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, a kidney complication that has become a hallmark of the outbreak. Officials said Friday they are also checking two possible E. coli cases in U.S. military service members in Germany and one in Czechoslovakia.

According to Allison Connolly of Bloomberg, people sickened by the E. coli outbreak in Germany ate more salad than healthy individuals in two epidemiological studies, Germany’s disease control agency said today in an e-mailed statement.  About 95 percent of the patients who became ill had eaten either lettuce, tomatoes or cucumbers, the Robert Koch Institute said. The agency’s advisory against eating the three products remains in place, according to the statement.  Employees who ate at a salad bar at an unnamed office cafeteria in Frankfurt where illnesses were reported were nearly seven times more likely to experience frequent bloody diarrhea as those who didn’t eat salad, the agency said.