German E. Coli Outbreak

[Fragony]

It's the tauge apparently, official statement later today

[Strike For The South]

Deny Probable Explanation

Blame Muslims

??????

Profit

[Fisherking]

@ gaelic cowboy

Yes, I do know about growing things and farming, and a few other things.

I speculated that it could have been like the anthrax attack, where we never got any answers. As opposed to a terror attack. In the end, it was traced to US Army stocks and then the story went away. Those accused were let go quietly. You can assume the investigation is on going...10 years later...

If it were terrorists there would be 50 different groups taking credit for it. I am surprised no one said they were behind it, regardless of facts, but anyway...

They are speculating that the beans may have come from abroad.

It is unlikely but possible but also requires that they were served unwashed.

We are still talking about a surface contaminant, after all. It gets onto the food, not in it.

It also means that the source is a seed supplier which means perhaps it should have been more wide spread. They should also have taken precautions.

There are going to be some greenhouse operations out of business though. It will cost more than they are worth to clean them to anything like a safe level.

Provided they just don’t end it here. There should be soil samples that prove it as well as the beans carrying the germs and an explanation as to where they came from.

It is too great a risk just to have the story to go away because they found a source, or someone to blame.

Blame doesn’t fix a problem.

[Fisherking]

After an exuberant assault on the sprout farm, they seem to be coming up empty.

There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that it came from there.

I understand they have some sprouts in a baggy they found some where in a fridge, they are testing those.

I don’t know what it will mean if those show up as positive and no others do.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I don't know what it will mean if those show up as positive and no others do.

Aliens, quite clearly. Those crop circles didn't infect themselves, you know.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I don't understand. The US has at least one major bacteria outbreak in its food every year (remember the deadly spinach) and everyone just sits around and goes..."oh yeah, it's all the hispanic workers that don't follow health codes."

But when it happens in Germany? Can't be migrant workers coming from Turkey or North Africa, some terrorists have been playing science.

[Papewaio]

Occam's razor

A strain of deadly E Coli that is resistant to washing ie it's more sticky. That it doesn't easily wash off and is in larger doses makes it more deadly to those with the 'incorrect' immune system. So it's Russian roulette with a .22 revolver with 2 bullets instead of 1.

Now if you are going to make a terrorist weapon are you going to:
a) Rely on something that could be washed off by more thorough washing (most sprouts get a light rinse so my assumption it is across multiple vegies and just highlighted in the sprouts).
&
b) A weapon that attacks the mighty vegans. A group known to be highly energised and violent.

Might as well be fricken sharks with lasers on their head.

People want to call it a weapon because in the West we are getting more and more distanced from both our food resources and epidemics that are fatal.

It would be interesting if it turns out the biogas fermentation was the site of the creation of these bugs. It might finally get people to do a true cost of energy resources and understand that the real bogey is bogies not nuclear.

Anyhow my bet it was either by nature or accidental fermentation so to speak, and was spread by lax cleaning. I do think the Spanish deserve an apology.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Deny Probable Explanation

Blame Muslims

??????

Profit

Dude, this is Europe. You can skip step 3. Like so:

'Deny Probable Explanation

Blame Muslims



Profit'

[Fisherking]

Here is a link to an article written on genetic finding for this particular strain:

http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ec...gineering.html

It dose show signs of being created and whether the release was intentional or accidental remains to be seen.

I don’t subscribe to all of the authors conclusions but it is food for thought.

[Shibumi]

Deny Probable Explanation

Blame Muslims

??????

Profit

There is some truth in this. Well, if you stretch "truth" to - "this might lead you to the right general thinking", thus again showing the brilliance of the blind hen or broken watch.

I would rather state it more along the lines of:

- Bacteria are wickedly good at adapting.
- Globalization.
- Stuff like this happens from time to time.
- Mass media actually get money when people buy/watch their stuff.

If you look at history we have had WAY worse. Most recent case I believe was simultaneously with WW1, and we still have no idea what that disease was, or if it can hit us again.

Oh, and one of the worst plagues were not a plague at all. And the old history book theory of rats spreading that particular one does not ring true with todays scientific methods. That plague was aerosol and wiped out half the western world. Let us hope that will not happen now.


A scary note: I think we were better prepared for something like that during the medieval times than now. Civilization now seem more brittle somehow. We are relying way more on advanced infrastructure and advanced agriculture - if that breaks we can not just pick up like they could back then.

Thoughts?

[Hax]

The Spanish flu, huh? Should we blame the Spaniards then?

[Fisherking]

The Spanish flu, huh? Should we blame the Spaniards then?

Well, I think they traced the start of it to an army post in Kansas.

I guess the Kansas Flu just doesn’t have that ring to it.

[TheLastDays]

The army flu?

Seriously it's all panic and mass media... like the swine flu... how many died from that? Way less than the casualties "normal" flu takes every year...

[Fisherking]

The army flu?

Seriously it's all panic and mass media... like the swine flu... how many died from that? Way less than the casualties "normal" flu takes every year...

No, you are wrong. The Pandemic killed more people than WWI.

Estimates run as high as 40 million.

http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

[Kralizec]

That's true, but subsequent flu epidemics weren't remotely as lethal as the spanish flu that occurred right after WW1.

All of the recent flu pandemics weren't much to write home about, in hindsight.

[Husar]

Well, one could also claim that if the mass media didn't warn people about all these illnesses and didn't tell people what to do to avoid them, maybe some of them would kill a lot more people than they actually did.
That's a big "what if" scenario but you never know what it's good for. Which is not to say that I approve of the big "killer virus!!!!11" headlines the yellow press likes to use.

[TheLastDays]

No, you are wrong. The Pandemic killed more people than WWI.

Estimates run as high as 40 million.

http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

You obviously misunderstood my post. I wasn't talking about the pandemic of 1918 but about the swine flu panic we had recently...

[Fragony]

Cure supposedly found

[Papewaio]

Here is a link to an article written on genetic finding for this particular strain:

http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ec...gineering.html

It dose show signs of being created and whether the release was intentional or accidental remains to be seen.

I don’t subscribe to all of the authors conclusions but it is food for thought.

That site is a little bit on the extreme side, might as well be a PETA site doing a how to cook steak blog or FOX NEWS on how they are right and right.

Golden Staph and several other bugs have became immune to various treatments. Evolution means that if the pressure is in the environment and that does not eradicate all of a species then the survivors general are better adapted as a population (may initially be far less of them).

Since it is looking like a broad spectrum of antibiotic resistance, the best place to create that is in livestock. So I'd switch my focus on looking for a meat vector and look at how the restaurants are plating up. All it would take is vegies to share the same area or tools as the raw meat. This is probably a lot easier if it is resistant to being washed in the first place. Someone carves up the meat, then lightly rinses the blade under a tap, next kitchen had chops up a cucumber. The sprouts get tossed in a bowl that had mince in it.

End of the day it is likely to be found to be poor hygiene standards along with a bug that has been created by over use of antibiotics.

[Fisherking]

@ TheLastDays Okay, I would agree then.

That site is a little bit on the extreme side, might as well be a PETA site doing a how to cook steak blog or FOX NEWS on how they are right and right.

Golden Staph and several other bugs have became immune to various treatments. Evolution means that if the pressure is in the environment and that does not eradicate all of a species then the survivors general are better adapted as a population (may initially be far less of them).

Since it is looking like a broad spectrum of antibiotic resistance, the best place to create that is in livestock. So I'd switch my focus on looking for a meat vector and look at how the restaurants are plating up. All it would take is vegies to share the same area or tools as the raw meat. This is probably a lot easier if it is resistant to being washed in the first place. Someone carves up the meat, then lightly rinses the blade under a tap, next kitchen had chops up a cucumber. The sprouts get tossed in a bowl that had mince in it.

End of the day it is likely to be found to be poor hygiene standards along with a bug that has been created by over use of antibiotics.

It is not one restaurant or chain that is behind the outbreak.

I would agree that were it meat, the bug would be easier to explain away but that is not where they are looking.

I also doubt that it is a hygiene issue. German food safety and hygiene standards are some of the toughest in the world. This is not Tijuana or even Tijuana Taco.

They have gone back to look at cucumbers again.

As I said I don’t subscribe to his conclusions but the data speaks loads.

Most resistant bacteria outbreaks have started in hospitals. Nothing I know of has ever shown up that was immune to all classes of antibiotics.

Threat both of those toxic genes showed up in the same organism is also a big deal and should be raising red flags at once.

This thing came from a lab. If it had been an ongoing problem I might feel differently. It just packs too big a punch for all those elements to combine and splice themselves together.

How it got out and how it is spread is another issue.

We will just have to wait and see.

[Fisherking]

Well, the latest news said they found them on the sprouts in the baggy in the fridge.

Everything else was clean. How could they grow them and not have any contaminants anywhere else except on those in the fridge?

It raises more questions than answers, for me.

[Motep]

Deny Probable Explanation

Blame Muslims

??????

Profit

Just remarking on how the world followed suit.

[Fisherking]

It seems I was wrong. It was not the sprouts from the fridge.

They got these sprouts from a dumpster. The family that had them ate them and said they got sick and through them out.

I don’t think they have come down with the illness yet though. I guess it has a 10 day incubation time.

[Papewaio]

It was just a matter of time before more superbugs were created. We've accidentally created great environments in both ICU wards and farms.

1) Hospitals very effectively kill off non resistant bugs, leaving the more resistant ones. New set of drugs are used, new set of resistances. Doesn't help that often the process is one step at a time, so try antibiotic A, nope doesn't work, now antibiotic B. Great it works. Except when the bug isn't completely wiped out and you know have resistance to A+B. This process leads on and on until you have bugs that are resistant to most if not all antibiotics. My take on it, is sometimes it would be better not to use any antibiotics and let the non-resistant bugs move in and out compete the resistant ones, then carpet bomb the non resistant ones later.

B) Farms. Two main scenarios, antibiotics not used to completion or the antibiotics all the time. Problem with using antibiotics all the time, you are guaranteed to create in the long term a population of resistant bugs.

So take highly resistant bugs in the manure for vegies, add in a gene for stickness and wham you have an epidemic anywhere a salad or mushrooms are not thoroughly cleaned.

My assumption is that this is still a natural process. That if anything the resistant bugs have been around for awhile and that they've recently picked up the stickness factor making them bypass anything that is thoroughly cleaned or cooked. Which can happen in any busy kitchen. Difference being that instead of mild flu, these ones are quite toxic.

These outbreaks have been happening through history. For a while we had antibiotics that worked, with overuse/abuse we've trained up the bugs to bypass them.

I'd legislate that antibiotics can only be administered to animals in controlled amounts by vets.

On a personal level, I'd roast all my vegies and mushrooms until the authourites have a handle on this.

[Shibumi]

It was just a matter of time before more superbugs were created. We've accidentally created great environments in both ICU wards and farms.

1) Hospitals very effectively kill off non resistant bugs, leaving the more resistant ones. New set of drugs are used, new set of resistances. Doesn't help that often the process is one step at a time, so try antibiotic A, nope doesn't work, now antibiotic B. Great it works. Except when the bug isn't completely wiped out and you know have resistance to A+B. This process leads on and on until you have bugs that are resistant to most if not all antibiotics. My take on it, is sometimes it would be better not to use any antibiotics and let the non-resistant bugs move in and out compete the resistant ones, then carpet bomb the non resistant ones later.

B) Farms. Two main scenarios, antibiotics not used to completion or the antibiotics all the time. Problem with using antibiotics all the time, you are guaranteed to create in the long term a population of resistant bugs.

So take highly resistant bugs in the manure for vegies, add in a gene for stickness and wham you have an epidemic anywhere a salad or mushrooms are not thoroughly cleaned.

My assumption is that this is still a natural process. That if anything the resistant bugs have been around for awhile and that they've recently picked up the stickness factor making them bypass anything that is thoroughly cleaned or cooked. Which can happen in any busy kitchen. Difference being that instead of mild flu, these ones are quite toxic.

These outbreaks have been happening through history. For a while we had antibiotics that worked, with overuse/abuse we've trained up the bugs to bypass them.

I'd legislate that antibiotics can only be administered to animals in controlled amounts by vets.

On a personal level, I'd roast all my vegies and mushrooms until the authourites have a handle on this.

Yepp.

Bacteria has been surviving a slight tad longer than us, to put it mildly and in an universal perspective. This life form seem to grow strength from assaults, thus the best we can do is to reach some sort of a stalemate.

With that said, mother nature might still outclever us. If we have a Gaia perspective, we are the virus, Gaia is just fighting back.

I am just joking, of course. The answer is found in prayers to God QAlmighty.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The time bacteria have been on Earth has nothing to do with how able they are to withstand attacks. Their generational refresh rate is orders of magnitude faster then us. That is all. The evolutionary process works faster on them then we can make new drugs. If a brand new antibiotic was made every single year that could kill all the bad bacteria we would never have a problem.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The time bacteria have been on Earth has nothing to do with how able they are to withstand attacks. Their generational refresh rate is orders of magnitude faster then us. That is all. The evolutionary process works faster on them then we can make new drugs. If a brand new antibiotic was made every single year that could kill all the bad bacteria we would never have a problem.

We would have. The bad bacteria are also the recycle feature of the ecosystem, so we'd have a huge problem dealing with a lot of waste that is no longer biodegradable (or degrades far to slowly). Additionally we'd probably have a fair few problems with various digestive systems: antibiotics kill us as much as they kill our killers.

[Fragony]

Just remarking on how the world followed suit.

It did? where

[Strike For The South]

So how many muslims can we still round up?

[Adrian II]

These bacterium are the microbial equivalent of lab rats.

No, the human and bovine intestine are the most probable labs. E. coli settles and breeds in the gut of man and cattle. Their manure can contaminate seeds and beans and convey the bacteria to any spot around the world where these are grown and/or consumed. Mother nature is a serial killer, something we tend to forget in an age that diefies nature and its supposed harmoniousness.

AII

P.S. Papewaio is right, evolution is the key to everything we know and experience in this life, including disease