Over 200 sickened and at least 4 deaths are attributed to eating E. coli contaminated spinach.  Now we are seeing the results as consumers turn away from a product that the Spinach/Lettuce industry could have made safer.

Salad plant will close after spinach scare; 200 out of job
(Associated Press)

A northern Indiana

This article at the Monterey Herald gives a comprehensive assessment on the problems faced by the lettuce and spinach industry of Salinas over the next year – a solution needs to be found.

From the article:

Bill Marler, a partner in the Seattle law firm Marler Clark, who has represented victims in high-profile foodborne illness

Cow PieFDA Statement on Foodborne E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak in Spinach

Positive Test Results

FDA and the State of California announced today that test results from the field investigation of the outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in spinach are positive for E. coli O157:H7.  Samples of cattle feces on one of the implicated ranches tested positive

More thoughts on yesterday’s hearing:

I have concerns despite the 4 deaths and over 200 illnesses that some politicians may simply fiddle while more spinach and lettuce is grown and more customers are sickened and more businesses go bankrupt (watch for that next).  Yesterday’s hearing was more telling by who did not attend – most

As Tim Hay of the San Mateo County Times reported today, a multinational food company and a Salinas vegetable farm have been ordered to pay an undisclosed amount to an elderly woman who was sickened in an outbreak of E. coli in a local retirement home, as well the son of a woman who died