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DID WILD PIGS CAUSE E. COLI OUTBREAK?
The outbreak of E. coli illness among people who ate raw spinach from a California field may have been caused by wild pigs.
Spinach traced to the field has been implicated in nearly 200 human illnesses and three deaths.
California health officials said Thursday afternoon they had compared the DNA “fingerprint” of E. coli O157:H7 specimens from persons who became ill with bacteria found in cattle waste in nearby pastures.
Bacteria with precisely the same DNA as the germ that caused disease was found only in cows in an adjacent pasture and from a stream running through the pasture, they said.
Since the pasture and the stream were both downhill from the field, it appears unlikely the bacteria could have been washed into the field by rainwater. Irrigation wells were at least a mile away.
The culprit may have been wild pigs, officials said. E. coli taken from the intestines of a wild pig — one of many that roam the ranch — also had the same deadly DNA fingerprint as the germs that caused illness, said Kevin Reilly, of the California Department of Health Services.
There were two other clues: holes in a fence between the pasture and the spinach field and numerous pig tracks in the field.
“We think there is a reasonable possibility that the contamination came from these pigs,” said Reilly, who would not say whether exterminating the wild pig population would be a recommended way of “reducing that risk factor.”
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