Nine Child HUS Cases in same Pennylvania Region
HUS or hemolytic uremic syndrome has struck nine children living in the region around Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania and the majority of them swam in the lake at Cowan’s Gap park before getting sick from E. coli.
That’s the word from Hershey Medical Center spokesman Scott Gilbert, who told about the unusually high number of HUS cases in children in an interview with Jim Tuttle of Public Opinion in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Three children with HUS are currently being treated at the medical center, including one who swam at Cowan’s Gap, Gilbert said.
In the Cowan’s Gap E. coli investigation, 15 people who swam in the lake during July have been identified as case patients. The park’s swimming facility has been closed and will not reopen this season, but a boil water advisory there has been lifted. People have returned to camping, fishing and using the park, but not in great numbers.
Christine Cronkright, Pennsylvania Department of Health, said the source of contamination has not been determined. “We can tell you that all of the tests that Department of Health conducted for E. coli 0157 at the lake came back negative,” she wrote in an e-mail to Public Opinion.
State and local E. coli investigators continue to look for the cause of this outbreak, which could possibly result in HUS litigation if a scientific explanation can be found. Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, a leading E. coli law firm representing outbreak victims, also is investigating and accepting clients who are deserving of answers. Compensation would be due to them if the bacterial source is the result of negligence. Free E. coli case consultations are available by submitting contact information online or calling a lawyer at the firm’s main line 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free).
HUS E. coli in Children Who Swam at Cowan’s Gap
Three children with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious E. coli complication that affects the kidneys, were still being treated this week at Penn State Hershey Medical Center as part of the Cowan’s Gap State Park E. coli outbreak.
The Pennsylvania hospital’s spokesman told the Record Herald newspaper in Waynesboro that there have been no new cases reported at Hershey in the last week. The medical center has treated eight patients in the last month for HUS. Five of them had ties to Cowans Gap, the spokesman said. So far, 14 cases of E. coli O157:H7 — 11 from Pennsylvania and three from Maryland — have been reported. All of them swam in the 42-acre lake at Cowans Gap between July 12 and July 31 and became ill a short time later. Of the Pennsylvania cases, six people are from Franklin County, four from Lancaster County and one from Huntingdon County, according to the newspaper. The Pennsylvania Department of Health is investigating and national E. coli lawyers at Pritzker Olsen Attorneys are monitoring the investigation on behalf of victims.
The lake closed August 9 due to the outbreak and has now reopened to boating and fishing. A different strain of E. coli was found in one of two wells at the park last week and a boil water notice was put in place Wednesday. The notice was lifted Sunday morning after “a string of good test results.”
HUS E. coli is a life-threatening condition in which the body’s red blood cells are fragmented by Shiga toxin, causing blocked circulation in the kidneys and elsewhere or bleeding in the brain. It predominantly causes kidney failure and most often affects children under 5, but people of all ages — including healthy young adults — can contract the disease and face death or dire illness, including paralysis or other central nervous system disorders. HUS can cause convulsions, strokes, severe anemia, vascular injury, heart problems and other serious health problems — both acute and long-term. Once an infection from a type of E. coli that emits a Shiga toxin has been established, no therapeutic interventions are available to lessen the risk of HUS from developing.
HUS symptoms may include: fever, abdominal pain, pale skin tone, fatigue and irritability, small, unexplained bruises or bleeding from the nose and mouth, decreased urination and swelling of the face, hands, feet, or entire body. Persons who experience these symptoms and believe they are at risk for HUS should seek emergency medical care immediately. HUS signs usually begin as the initial diarrhea from E. coli infection is improving.
New Screening Needed For E. coli in Water
Government scientists are looking for new ways to test for E. coli O157:H7 in water because the conventional method has been proven to be flawed. Regulators since the 1980s have looked for fecal bacteria in water as indicators for E. coli O157:H7 — which is so dispersed in water that it is hard to find.
But last year on test ponds in Georgia, Michael Jenkins and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service tested the survival rates of E. coli O157:H7 and four species of indicator bacteria. The tests showed that E. coli outlives the indicator bacteria — raising the potential for false negative test results. The experiments found that the indicator bacteria died off significantly more quickly than E. coli O157:H7 did. For example, most cells of fecal Enterococcus—an indicator species—died in less than five days. But it took between seven and 18 days for most of the E. coli O157:H7 to die.
“We need to develop methods that are going to be able to quantify the pathogens themselves,” Jenkins is quoted as saying in a Kansas State University food safety website known as “bites.”
E. coli O157:H7 is a strain of E. coli that produces large quantities of a potent toxin that can damage the human intestinal tract with potentially fatal health consequences. Most people infected with E. coli O157:H7 develop diarrhea (often bloody) and abdominal cramps 2-8 days (3-4 days, on average) after swallowing the organism. Some illnesses last longer and are more severe. Infection is usually diagnosed by stool sample culture. While most people recover within a week, 5 to 15 percent of those who become infected develop life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). HUS often begins as the diarrhea is improving and often results in a cascade of medical problems including kidney failure, seizures, stroke, respiratory distress, neurological deficits and other harms. HUS can occur among persons of any age but is most common in children under 5 years old and the elderly.
Method Improved for Finding E. coli in Water
A team of USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Georgia have combined techniques to better detect E. coli and other pathogens in waterways. E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most dangerous of all foodborne pathogens in a country where one in six people are afflicted annually with some sort of food poisoning. Other types of shiga toxin-producing E. coli bacteria are equally dangerous, though not as prevalent.
People can become infected with E. coli by the water they drink or swim in. But E. coli in water also can cause large outbreaks of illness when it contaminates produce during irrigation, flooding or in runoff. Just last year the government investigated an outbreak of lettuce E. coli O145 in five Midwestern states that was traced back to romaine lettuce grown near Yuma, Arizona. No hard conclusions were reached as to how the lettuce became contaminated, but part of the investigation involved E. coli water sampling in a storm water retention pond and an irrigation canal. The outbreak sickened 33 people.
Another 2010 E. coli outbreak involved water at Fralo’s Art of Pizza in San Antonio, Texas. In that outbreak, dozens of people became sick and the restaurant shut down temporarily because of a contaminated water supply.
The ARS field research into better collection methods occurred at the J. Phil Campbell Sr. Natural Resource Conservation Center in Watkinsville, Georgia. Similar methods have been developed to detect pathogenic E. coli in meat products, but the team’s approach represents a first for waterways.
For water sampling, traditional methods have involved looking for indicator pathogens because it is too hard to detect E. coli and Salmonella bacteria themselves because they are so dispersed. But it takes just 100 cells of Salmonella or 10–100 cells of E. coli O157:H7 to cause illness. The goal was to to be able to use the pathogens themselves in assessing the contamination, instead of the indicator organisms.
The researchers used a water-filtration technique to concentrate the pathogens; a special medium for growing and measuring the number of pathogenic cells; a biochemical testing process; and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology, a molecular identification technique often used to increase or magnify a small sample of DNA. The results were more effective for isolating E. coli and Salmonella in water and the finding is considered a breakthrough for all public health investigators.
National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys represents victims of water E. coli outbreaks and all other serious foodborne illness outbreaks where there is an identified source of contamination. If you or a loved one has been sickened by E. coli O157:H7 or other shiga toxin-producing type of E. coli (STEC), contact an E. coli lawyer at our firm for any questions you have about pursuing a legal claim. Free case consultations are provided by calling the firm 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or by completing our contact form.
Texas Commission Probing Fralo’s Pizza E. coli
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has taken over the investigation into how E. coli found its way into the water well that supplies Fralo’s Art of Pizza in Leon Springs.
At least 24 patrons of the popular Fralo’s pizza restaurant were sickened last week and water from the restaurant’s shallow well was identified as the suspected cause. A 400,000-gallon sewage spill at a nearby San Antonio Water System lift system coincided with the Fralo’s E. coli outbreak.
E. coli attorneys and food safety lawyers at Pritzker Olsen, P.A. are in contact with victims of this outbreak and the firm is conducting its own investigation into the food poisoning at Fralo’s. For a free case consultation, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete the contact form on the side of this Web page.
“By serving food to the public, a restaurant is essentially guaranteeing that the food product is safe,” said food safety attorney Elliot Olsen. “If it turns out that any portion of that food is not safe, and people become sick as a result, the restaurant can be held responsible.”
PritzkerOlsen has a record of winning E. coli lawsuits against restaurants, food manufacturers, meatpackers and other purveyors of contaminated food. We are one of the few law firms in the county practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness and we have collected millions for victims of food poisoning.
