EHEC plague in Germany, more and more infected fighting for their lives!

Originally posted by EartOccupant
Remeber this from Wikileaks:

The cable reveals the words of Craig Stapleton, the US ambassador to France, who was pushing the commercial interests of the biotech industry by attempting to force GMOs into France. In his own words (below), he expresses his frustration with the idea that France might pass environmental laws that would hamper the expansion of GMOs: "Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission... Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice."

ATS Monsanto wikileaks

So the Bio-war has started..

Scare people of Bio-foods and chase them into the arms of Bayer and Monsanto...

edit on 29-5-2011 by EartOccupant because: (no reason given)

Getting People to fear Organic Food is only the first Step.
Second Step is to bankrupt Farmers (which will happen if this isn´t resolved quickly,because even our Farmers here in Germany are having Problems selling their Stuff).
Third Step is to buy near insolvent Farmers,or outright destroy them and replace it with "Save GMO" Food.
Fourth Step: Profit!

In my Opinion,this isn´t an Accident (looking at the Virus,it can´t be one).
A Terror-Attack? By who?
Al-Quada doesn´t have the means to do something like that,and its not their Style anyway.
Lybia? No Reason really,clearly the Opposite.
Don´t really know who would or could do that,other than some Secret Agency...or from what i think,and looking at who would profit from this,GMO Producers,who aren´t allowed to do bussiness here...yet.

Edit: As some already pointed out,looking at the Facts,the Virus got on/in the Veggies on their way to Germany How is that even possible if they are in sealed Containers anyway? Clearly looks like an "Terror-Attack".

The one Question we should ask right now: Who did it?

Originally posted by Shenon
Don´t really know who would or could do that,other than some Secret Agency...or from what i think,and looking at who would profit from this,GMO Producers,who aren´t allowed to do bussiness here...yet.

I did not know that Germany doesn't allow GMO yet.

That was a thought which ran through my mind, as well...that it was an effort to steer the market away from organic foods. It was triggered by these statements about the suspected foods being organic. I mean...what is the point of the officials continuously noting that the produce is organic:

Austria's food safety agency has urged consumers to destroy organically grown cucumbers, tomatoes and aubergines grown by Spanish producer Frunet, as the products might be contaminated with EHEC. They were shipped in via German distributors.

Suspicion has so far turned on Spain, with the European Commission saying on Friday that organic cucumbers grown in the southern provinces of Almeria and Malaga are suspected as a source of the outbreak.

But I did not realize that Germany doesn't allow GMO until you noted it...so that makes it that much more suspicious to me now.


And, as a side note, Spain is denying involvement in the outbreak:

On Friday, the European Commission said that two Spanish farms in Malaga and Almeria had been shut down after German experts identified Spanish cucumbers as the source of the E. coli bacteria. But on Saturday, the Spanish authorities denied that the two farms had been closed temporarily. The regional health ministry of the Spanish region of Andalusia said that water, soil and cucumber samples from the farms were being analyzed, but that the shipping of produce had not been halted. There have been no reported cases of E. coli in Spain and the authorities say it is by no means certain that the bacteria originated there.

Originally posted by idunno12
Dalbeck, when you come online today will you let us know...do you have any idea what the incubation period is for this thing? From initial infection to first sign of the symptoms...

Incubation period is 2 to 4 days up to 8/ 10 days in several cases. Most of the cases I had on my desk had an incubation period of 3 - 4 days.

Maybe there is really something bigger behind the whole situation but I don't want to feed into any "conspiracy" stuff (like an act of terror).

Update: Scientists found out that "Eculizumab" could be a cure for EHEC.

reply to post by idunno12


As far as i know,everything Monsanto is banned in Germany (google "Monsanto not allowed in Germany"). Don´t know if someone else grows things here,but considering they own ~90% of GMO Patents,i doubt it.

A quick test for EHEC infection is on its way, so no waiting for up to 38 hrs.

According to the latest news here in Germany (Hamburg) it's not sure that those cucumbers are the source for this EHEC plague. They confirmed that they indeed found EHEC bacteria on those cucumbers but it's not the 104 tree responsible for the ill patient. So they warned again not to eat tomatoes or salad as they can't rule out another source. So be careful what you eat.
Maybe Dalbeck has more informations about this as I'm more the IT guy.

That's what I just heard also,
they tested a lot of Spanish cucumbers and didn't find the bacteria on them, so our news says that these probably aren't the source....

wait a min,
did Dalback say that they found the bacteria INSIDE the veggies???
That is bad....
means everything has to be cooked, washing and peeling alone isn't good enough!

I just saw a map of the outbreak, I'll link it here but it's to a dutch news site
map EHEC outbreak

www.independent.co.uk...

I just wondered if anyone remembered this?

The British MOD had to admit to experimenting with lives by dropping e coli germs on the british population by
MP Norman Baker.

It is just unusual to find such widespread e coli infection when usually it is small localised cases. Very abnormal.

Latest update for today on RSOE EDIS

Situation Update No. 22

On 31.05.2011 at 11:30 GMT+2


Two new deaths linked to a mysterious bacterial outbreak in Europe blamed on tainted vegetables were reported Tuesday, including the first outside Germany, as the number of people falling ill continued to rise. The deaths brought to 16 the total number of fatalities linked to the E. coli outbreak, with northwestern Germany the hardest-hit region. Hospital officials in Boras, Sweden, announced the death of woman in her 50s who was admitted on May 29 after a trip to Germany.

In Paderborn, Germany, the local council said an 87-year-old woman who also suffered from other ailments had died. In Germany, the national disease control center said 373 people were sick with the most serious form of the outbreak _ hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a rare complication arising from an infection most commonly associated with E. coli.

That figure was up from the 329 reported Monday. Susanne Glasmacher, a spokeswoman for the Robert Koch Institute, said another 796 people have been affected by the enterohaemorrhagic E.coli, also known as EHEC, bacteria _ making a total of more than 1,150 people infected.

Hundreds of people also have been sickened in other European countries, but until Tuesday Germany had seen the only deaths.

Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment is still warning consumers to avoid all cucumbers, lettuces and raw tomatoes as the outbreak is investigated.

European Union officials have said that German authorities identified cucumbers from the Spanish regions of Almeria and Malaga as possible sources of contamination and that a third suspect batch, originating either in the Netherlands or in Denmark and traded in Germany, is also under investigation.

They have also noted, however, that the transport chain is long, and the cucumbers from Spain could have been contaminated at any point along the route.

The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said Tuesday that no traces of EHEC bacteria were found in tests conducted over the weekend. "There is therefore nothing that indicates that Danish cucumbers are the source of the serious E.coli outbreak that has infected several patients in Germany, Denmark and Sweden," the agency said.

In the meantime, Russia's chief sanitary agency on Monday banned the imports of cucumbers, tomatoes and fresh salad from Spain and Germany pending further notice. It said in a statement that it may even ban the imports of fresh vegetables from all European Union member states due to the lack of information about the source of infection.

hisz.rsoe.hu...

In earlier updates I also read that new tests from Spain (water and soil) will be official tomorrow - and they haven't found any evidence yet that really points out Spain, as the sole place of origin of this current EHEC outbreak.

And according to this update they are also investigating a third suspect batch, originating either in the Netherlands or in Denmark and traded in Germany.

Alas, it's perhaps better to stay away from raw unboiled vegetables altogether, at least for the rest of the week until they/we know some more specifics and facts regarding this whole situation?

Doubts cast on E coli, cucumber link

German authorities are now casting doubt over whether Spanish cucumbers caused the massive outbreak of deadly E coli.

German authorities are now casting doubt over whether Spanish cucumbers caused the massive outbreak of a deadly bacterial infection that has left at least 16 dead.

Health officials in Hamburg are saying that the source remains unidentified.

It was thought that cucumbers from Spain were at the origin of the outbreak.

But Spanish officials have refused to accept the blame, saying it is still unclear exactly when and where the vegetables were contaminated.

A total of 16 deaths have now been linked to the outbreak, including a fatality outside of Germany. A woman died in hospital in Sweden after picking up the infection in Germany.

There are 36 cases of suspected E coli in Sweden, all linked to travel in northern Germany, authorities said. A small number of cases have been reported in Britain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands, all linked with travel to Germany.

Spain, meanwhile, said it was mulling taking action over Spanish cucumbers being blamed for the outbreak.

'There is no proof of this and so we will demand explanations from who has attributed this matter to Spain,' Diego Lopez Garrido, secretary of state for the European Union, told journalists.

Horticultural farms in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia have been losing €7-8m a day since German authorities linked the bacteria to Spanish cucumbers last week.

www.rte.ie...


Video in the article with the Spanish agricultural minister eating Spanish cucumber on TV - lol!

German authorities have said they do not know whether Spanish cucumbers have caused the outbreak of E.Coli which has killed at least 16 people.

The apparent backtrack by Germany has come after Spain and the Netherlands demanded compensation for vegetable producers who have lost money as a result of concerns over their produce.

The Spanish agricultural minister said she estimated the loss of sales in Spain to reach "more than 200 million euros a week".

Earlier, she defended the country's cucumber crop by eating the fruit on TV.

Rosa Aguilar said it is still unclear exactly when and where the vegetables were contaminated.

She tucked in to some cucumbers grown in Spain in an attempt to show they can not be blamed for one of the largest E.coli outbreaks in the world.

"The image of Spain is being damaged, Spanish producers are being damaged and the Spanish government is not prepared to accept this situation," she said.

It said a third suspect batch of the vegetable originating in the Netherlands and traded in Germany was also under investigation.

SKY NEWS

I'm starting to think that Spain and their cucumbers are not the only vegetables which have been tainted.

Maybe some batches of various vegetables were contaminated somewhere else during a transit point in Germany?

And that could explain this warning for tomatoes and lettuce as well perhaps?

Economical sabotage against organic farmers?

did anyone notice that by now among deads are only women?
Curious enough.

Originally posted by Chevalerous

Maybe some batches of various vegetables were contaminated somewhere else during a transit point in Germany?

Just look into the thread in the rats forum

reply to post by Dalbeck


Thanks man!

I was just there and read the thread!

As I see it there could perhaps be three possibilities:

1. One innocent & horrible mistake, and no one knew!

2. One horrible mistake happens - but they decide to send out and distribute tainted vegetables anyway because of the money involved.

3. An act of sabotage at some transit point in Germany where contaminated vegetables were mixed into the tonnage of other vegetables from another country of origin.

Or maybe even a mix of some parts from of all three scenarios above!

reply to post by Dalbeck


What is the rats forum, could you give a link? I google it and get a forum about rats...

The eeriest thing of all, according to Rolf Stahl, is the way patients change. "Their awareness becomes blurred, they have problems finding words and they don't quite know where they are," says Stahl. And then there is this surprising aggressiveness. "We are dealing with a completely new clinical picture," he notes.

The bacterium that is currently terrifying the country is an enterohemorrhagic strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli (EHEC), a close relative of harmless intestinal bacteria, but one that produces the dangerous Shiga toxin. All it takes is about 100 bacteria -- which isn't much in the world of bacteria, which are normally counted by the millions -- to become infected. After an incubation period of two to 10 days, patients experience watery or bloody diarrhea
...
Karch and others speculate that the problem could lie in the pathogen itself. Perhaps the genetic material of this rare bacterium has mutated again, so that its toxin or its bond to the intestinal cells it damages has become stronge
...
On Tuesday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Karch had discovered that the O104:H4 bacteria responsible for the current outbreak is a so-called chimera that contains genetic materia from various E. coli bacteria. It also contains DNA sequences from plague bacteria, which makes it particularly pathogenic.

source

Originally posted by GalacticJoe

On Tuesday, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Karch had discovered that the O104:H4 bacteria responsible for the current outbreak is a so-called chimera that contains genetic materia from various E. coli bacteria. It also contains DNA sequences from plague bacteria, which makes it particularly pathogenic.
source

That's interesting because I was checking on the other epidemic notations last night, in the rest of the world, and these caught my eye:

Event date: 27.05.2011 20:48:39
Country: United States
State: State of New Mexico
Location:- [Santa Fe County]The New Mexico Department of Health says it has confirmed a second case of bubonic plague. Department of Health Secretary Dr. Catherine Torres says the department is seeing plague activity in humans and animals in north-central New Mexico.

Event date: 31.05.2011 03:38:52
Country: Canada
State: Province of Ontario
Location:Toronto [-]A case of NDM-1 superbug that was acquired in Ontario highlights how difficult it is to detect and control the infection, Canadian researchers say. The 86-year-old man had not travelled outside of southwestern Ontario for 10 years before he was admitted to a hospital and then a rehabilitation centre in Toronto for a stroke. Investigators found he was carrying a strain of bacteria that are able to make an enzyme called NDM-1 that showed deepening resistance to antibiotics. No one knows how the man became colonized with the strain.

A second patient, a 71-year-old woman, acquired the resistant bug after she travelled to India for an experimental vein-opening procedure to treat symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

The clear areas in the top half of the plate show that the Klebsiella with NDM-1 was sensitive to antibiotics....NDM-1 has mainly been found in E. coli and Klebsiella bacteria

And thanks for the update Dalbeck.

Originally posted by Douriff
did anyone notice that by now among deads are only women?
Curious enough.

I knew that they were surprised at an unusually high rate of adult infection (86%) with high cases in women (68%). But I was not aware that the only deaths so far were women. Do you have a source for that? Or did I just miss it within all of the information already posted. My apologies if I did.

reply to post by idunno12

I've read this in a Croatian news paper. It was stated that all of them are women, but that was yesterday.
Typed in google: "16 died from e coli germany most of them women" I find out that this statement is true. So by now it si not true that all of them are women. Didn't find exact numbers of how many victims are women, or how many children/men, and if children, are they boys or girls.

Severity of Europe E. Coli Outbreak Stuns Experts

t's "extraordinary" to see so many cases of the kidney complication from a foodborne illness, said Dr. Robert Tauxe, a foodborne disease expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"There has not been such an outbreak before that we know of in the history of public health," Tauxe said
...
The World Health Organization said 86 percent of those sickened were adults, and two-thirds were women. It said it was unusual that more children weren't affected.
...

source

Very few children? Could this be an alcoholic beverage?

If the source is some vegetable it is not at all strange that more women then men are affected.
Women simply eats more vegetables then men.

I found a study running over 6 years in Sweden, made between 2004-2010, that showed that 35% of the men between 16-84 years of age, ate less then recommended levels of vegetables.
The same number for women was only 18%.
I guess this situation doesn't differ alot between other european countries.

The first death outside Germany was a swedish woman in her 50's by the way.
She died earlier today in the hospital in my home town

All of the infected swedish citizens (41 of them today, 15 with the aggressive kind that attacks the kidneys) have recently been visiting northen Germany (or have family that has recently been visiting northern Germany) and are believed to have been sick while eating there, so it is not yet established that the source of the infection have spread here yet.
I don't know much about other european countries tho, hopefully the source itself haven't been spread outside Germany.

All of this makes me worried and I sure hope the source of the problem is found soon.
Especially since it's transmittable between human to human.
This could get nasty and out of control fast otherwise...

I don't know how to embed a pdf file statistics table, so here's the link to the swedish vegetable study (it's in swedish but if you scroll down to the second chart, it's the one showing men and womens intake of vegetables):
www.fhi.se...