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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] e-coli and starlings

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  • From: "elderberryjam" <elderberryjam@zippytech.com>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] e-coli and starlings
  • Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:46:23 -0400

The following is a post I recently posted to the yahoo group, "crunchyearthmommies," where I am having a somewhat heated debate with some vegan breastfeeding women. It originated from a discussion on milk causing breast cancer; and when I posted that there was no breast cancer in my family, and we grew up on raw milk, and my perceptions of the implications of this; the vegan onslaught began. I am trying very hard to stick to the facts, sound research, and to dispel responses changing my slant to mean other things. I had not intended it to be a discussion on veganism vs. eating meat; and have stuck to that - I only disagreed with the idea that all milk causes breast cancer. But some angry people just don't want to argue fair. This post was an attempt to address some misconceptions regarding e-coli, and I thought some of you here might be interested in it. My intent is to educate some women who breastfeed (as I do) regarding their misconceptions about e-coli; whether or not they are vegans. I thought it pertained to soil health because it is focused on a couple of very recent studies (from Cornell and from OSU) about how e-coli makes it into our food.

---------------------------------

While we're talking e-coli here, I have done some extensive reading
on it and other pathogens over the past 2 years, particularly in
relationship to raw milk. I have an insatiable curiosity about the
bugs in food that make us ill; and the bugs that make us well. I'm a
nurse, and I like to make cheese, so bacteria interests me intensely.

There are many strains of e-coli. Only a few make people sick. The
ones that most commonly make people sick are found in the feces of
grain-fed cows. The grain increases the bacterial resistance to
stomach acids, causing it to thrive while healthier e-coli's die off.
(There is a lot to be said for keeping a healthy diet and healthy
rumen). According to a recent article published by Cornell
University, when cows are changed to a grass-fed diet, within 2
weeks, the infectious e-coli strain disappears from their feces.

Another post mentioned that spinach in California was contaminated
with e-coli from a nearby farm. But when I looked up the information,
the researchers never did figure out how the manure from the cow farm
got into the spinach field, which was over a mile away and not in the
run-off from the farm. There was no evidence to suggest the cows had
made it into the field. They suspected wild hogs of transferring the
e-coli to the spinach field from the farm.

Following is an article published in Ohio Farmer this month:

Scientists Link Wild Birds to E-Coli Contamination
Sept. 26, 2007

In order to help minimize foodborne illnesses throughout the country,
scientists at Ohio State University are gathering data about the role
wild birds play in E. coli contamination on farms. The goal is to
design effective pre-harvest control strategies.

Jeff LeJeune, a microbiologist and veterinary scientist with the
university's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center
(OARDC) in Wooster, leads the groundbreaking study, which
concentrates on an invasive nuisance bird whose impact on the
propagation of disease-causing pathogens has not been determined:
European starlings.

There's strong evidence that these birds harbor E. coli and other
dangerous organisms such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, and that
they contribute to the spread of pathogens between farms. Studies
have found that E. coli O157-H7 strains isolated from European
starlings are the same as strains found on dairy farms in close
geographical proximity.

"This is the first study about the relationship between European
starlings and food safety," says LeJeune. "We need to know how much
these birds are contributing to infection on farms to see if
management strategies to reduce their numbers or restrict access to
livestock-feeding areas are warranted. If you can prevent infection
on the farm, you'll positively impact food safety downstream."

Cattle are an important foodborne route of human infection with E.
coli via contaminated ground beef and raw milk, and manure is an
important environmental source of contamination, which is why we are
concentrating our study on dairy farms. This research will also be
important to find out whether starlings are contributing to the
spread of E. coli on vegetable fields as they fly between dairy
farms.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), E. coli O157:H7 (one of hundreds of strains of the bacterium
Escherichia coli) causes an estimated 73,000 cases of infection and
61 deaths in the United States each year. Most of these cases are
associated with eating undercooked ground beef, but a growing number
of recent E. coli-related outbreaks and recalls have involved fresh
vegetables - including the California spinach outbreak that sickened
199 people and killed three last year.





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