European Epidemic / E-Coli Biotechnology

I've been following the epidemic event unfolding in europe now since its first outbreak in the second week of this month (May). I often keep a close eye on events happening throughout the world on RSOE EDIS. I'm finding the information trickling out very interesting, what little there is.

At least one person has died in Germany after contracting a dangerous strain of E. coli. The outbreak, whose cause is currently not known, is concentrated in the north of the country. Over 400 confirmed or suspected cases have already been recorded. Health officials in Germany are in a state of alarm over an outbreak of E. coli infections that has already caused one confirmed death. The health ministry in the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony announced on Tuesday that an 83-year-old woman had died after being infected with E. coli. She was admitted to hospital with bloody diarrhea on May 15 and died on Saturday, the ministry said. Health authorities confirmed that tests had confirmed the woman was infected with the E. coli pathogen. In Bremen, authorities reported that a young woman with symptoms of an E. coli infection had died in the early hours of Tuesday, but laboratory tests have yet to confirm the diagnosis. A third woman infected with E. coli died in Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, but the cause of death was unclear. The woman was over 80 and was in hospital to have an operation. The current outbreak involves a strain known as enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC). Symptoms of an infection include bloody diarrhea and stomach cramps. In some cases, an infection can cause a disease called haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), which can lead to kidney failure and even death. The outbreak began in the second week of May, and authorities in Germany have so far recorded over 400 confirmed or suspected cases of EHEC infections.

Around 40 cases are said to be very serious. On Monday night, several patients were fighting for their lives, with some having to be artificially ventilated. One patient was in a coma. Around 1,000 people become infected with the pathogen each year in Germany, but experts say the current infection rate is unusually high. "The current trend exceeds any historical comparison," said microbiologist Werner Solbach from the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel. According to Solbach, laboratory tests have shown that the current outbreak involves a bacterial strain that is partially resistant to antibiotics. The source of the outbreak is not known, but it is currently hypothesized that the patients contracted the infection by eating unwashed vegetables. The outbreak is currently concentrated in the north of Germany, and most of the victims are adult women. There are over 200 suspected cases in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein and almost 100 in Lower Saxony. Other cases have been reported in the states of Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland, as well as in the city-states of Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin. The German government is concerned about the outbreak. Health Minister Daniel Bahr spoke to the head of the Robert Koch Institute, the central German institution for disease control and prevention, in a telephone call about the situation, a spokesman said Tuesday. Health authorities advised people in Germany to be careful about hygiene, to thoroughly wash fruit and vegetables, and to contact a doctor immediately in the events of symptoms such as bloody diarrhea. E. coli bacteria usually live in the intestines of ruminants and can be transferred to humans who eat uncooked food.

Germany have at the moment Banned/stopped imports of cucumber, lettice and tomato imports from european countries, and the epidemic has reached our UK borders a rew nights ago.

Your thinking, whats so interesting about this ? why are you even telling us ATS'ers ? well the E-coli String of bacteria is the easiest modified bacteria, easy to grow, easy to manipulate so these characteristics make it the top bacteria to lead Biotechnology and creating genetically modified foods, all this information is available through wikipedia.

I'm just finding this very odd, and scientists agree at the scale of this dangerouse version of E-coli is spreading, my point is, is this hightened outbreak due to bio technology ? or simply just poor food handling and sods law?

So far total amount of people infected; 1345
deaths; 18

(updated figures from AP news)

reply to post by Wolvo


S.E.A.R.C.H, SEEEEAARRCCCCH!

Jamie.

reply to post by pandapowerjamie


I've came across a couple threads in search But not as detailed and bringing up the same points as myself i dont think

reply to post by Wolvo


for more information look here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Wolvo
reply to post by pandapowerjamie

 

I've came across a couple threads in search But not as detailed and bringing up the same points as myself i dont think

maybe you would bring your genuis to the other threads that already exist?

I found an article from the telegraph newspaper, talking about the potential for terroists to target food using ecoli.

news.google.co.uk...
The actual story has been deleted, but you can see at the top of the page that the idea has been considered even by the msm.
I'm not saying for sure this is whats happened, just saying its not so unbelievable.

reply to post by Wolvo


It's either that or this could be an act of terrorism

reply to post by Wolvo


Oh yeah! you could perhaps be right with your thoughts on this?

Scary indeed!

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

www.spiegel.de...


It's scary that many of these recent threats has one thing or another in common - The Human Immune System!

It almost feels like some people out there are hell bent on degrading our immune system by every means possible.

On the Fly, German Doctors Find Treatment for Deadly E. coli Infections

by Kai Kupferschmidt on 27 May 2011, 6:08 PM

In the middle of the biggest outbreak of food poisoning caused by the bacterium enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) that Germany has ever seen, a group of doctors may have found a way to treat the most severe cases. The finding appears today in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

In the article, Franz Schaefer, a nephrologist at the Center for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in Heidelberg, Germany, and other physicians describe how they successfully treated three EHEC-infected children suffering from HUS with a novel approach. They used the monoclonal antibody eculizumab, which has been on the market since 2007, to treat a rare blood disorder. Eculizumab inhibits a part of the human immune system called the complement system that usually destroys invading cells that have been tagged for destruction by other parts of the immune system.

The complement system has been implicated for some time in certain patients who develop HUS without any EHEC infection, known as atypical HUS patients, and eculizumab has been used successfully to treat them. Recent research suggests that the complement system might also be involved in the HUS cases caused by EHEC.

Last autumn, Schaefer saw a young girl suffering from HUS due to an EHEC infection. He first tried the most common treatment, replacing the patients’ blood plasma with donor plasma to rid the body of the toxins. (HUS patients are usually not treated with antibiotics because the antibiotics can aggravate the symptoms by releasing the shiga toxin from the bacteria in large amounts.)

When the girl’s health did not improve, Schaefer tried the antibody. "We did not have any other option. She was showing severe neurological symptoms, paralysis of one side of the body, cramps, and then slipped into a coma," Schaefer remembers. “But when we finally gave her the antibody, she improved immensely within 24 hours,” Schaefer says. “This was not a controlled experiment, of course,” he says. “But the improvements were very suggestive of being due to the treatment.”

Schaefer was apparently not the only one with this idea. When he wrote a case report for NEJM, the editors notified him that two other groups had sent in similar reports around the same time. “So we wrote something all together and it was accepted for publication 14 days ago,“ Schaefer says. A few days later, HUS cases started appearing en masse in northern Germany.

“I could not believe it," Schaefer says. "HUS cases with severe neurological symptoms are very rare, but now they are everywhere." He also informed his colleagues elsewhere. “A lot of them have asked about the new treatment, and a few patients are already being treated with it."

news.sciencemag.org...


I found this bit of information to be very interesting in context with earlier discussions here on ATS with the (H1N1) swine-flu and the impact of that disease and certain boosters/adjuvants which were included in the vaccines (squalene adjuvant) and their effect on the human immune system - and other neurological disorders and side effects of those adjuvants.

(there are plenty of cases of narcolepsy right now in both Sweden and Finland among children who took the vaccine)

H1N1 Flu Shot Narcolepsy Link Found, Vaccine Under Review

www.huffingtonpost.com...

reply to post by Chevalerous


Very nice find chevalerous, this is an easy topic/event which can be easily missed, intensionly. There are countless Ecoli events in food, just simply withdraw the foods. But in this case its not that simple. Germans banning imports, working on a cure, somethings up maybe not as sinister as we may be claiming But somethings wrong. I dont trust vaccinations as far as you can throw em, rushed medical marvels with a high risk of unpropper testing and unknown definate side effects, look at swine flu and the old baby jabs.

Well..last time it was a deadly "swine Flu" that was going to wipe us all off the planet...unless... oh yes...you are saved..there is a VACCINE!!!

Now E-coli suddenly killing people when several countries "race" to come up with a vaccine...hmmmm sounds too familar. What ever happened to the Swine Flu Pandemic!

www.theglobeandmail.com...

and ...

www.sciencedaily.com...

pamela

reply to post by pamela6000


Your science daily link is a little dated, But none the less, there still preparations towards it. The first link is very interesting also, destroying ecoli before it even gets into our food sources. But I'm gonna guess farmers are going to have to pay for the animal vaccines? Which i doubt will happen unless theres government funding involved. Whats the most odd part is the fact there doubling their efforts at a new vaccine for human use. Makes me a little suspicious and point my finger towards biotechnology and geoengineering, thank you for contributing your information =)

Faux pas alert newbie post. I saw this story on the news and it didn't smell right. I can't remember hearing any news stories about European food contamination here in the states before. What struck me is that this strain seems to be sex specific.

"In the case of the current outbreak, however, women make up more than two-thirds of those affected, and young and middle-aged adults."

Read more: healthland.time.com...

and

"most of those affected so far by this outbreak have been young, adult women who were perfectly healthy a week earlier, a demographic that is baffling epidemiologists."

www.nature.com...

Why would a food borne illness strike women more than men?

and the drug that treats this strain "Alexion makes a drug called, eculizumab (Soliris), recently listed by Forbes as the world's most expensive drug. Soliris costs patients and their insurers about $300,000 to $400,000 a year."

www.hartfordbusiness.com...

Something else I have considered is it may be a red herring. No one would think it strange or alarming if people from the government were collecting samples of food stuffs. Maybe they are trying to collect samples to test for radiation with out alarming the public. What way did the typhoon blow? You wouldn't want women who may become pregnant or be pregnant to eat the stuff before you knew it was safe. Only problem is I would think children would be in the risk group either way. As far as the "treatment" possibly it may prohibit women from getting pregnant or offer protection if she should become pregnant. Two headed babies might alarm the public. Something stinks but I can't identify the smell.

P.S. Anyone know the name of the Station in Norway that was broadcasting the map showing where the radiation was headed? I can't find any recent info.

I do hope someone will clue me in if I am doing this wrong.

Pamela,

In regards to your comment about the H1N1 vaccine.

"the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 12 countries report suspected cases of narcolepsy linked to swine flu H1N1 vaccinations, especially in children and adolescents ages four to 19."

www.cbsnews.com...

Lots of kids got vaccinated worldwide. Nap time kids.

Does everyone realize or has it even been mentioned yet , that the Ecoli strain contains DNA from plague.
Phunomic? or Bumonic? i don't remember which.

It's in a link on one of these threads on ATS. Use search. (if it will search within a "reply" which contains links.)

Has anyone considered GMOs (genetically modified organisms) I have read that Monsanto and the ilk sometimes combine plant DNA with virus and bacteria to make the plants "better." May explain the weird combo. The more I hear about the unusual properties of the E coli strain, the more it sounds like H1N1. If I remember that was some unnatural mash up.

reply to post by Ladysophiaofsandoz


That seems to be the case, on bbc news earlier today it was saying two totally different strands of e-Coli have come together to create such a dangerous one. I'm on my phone at the moment so I'll post links once I'm home. The story mentioned how unnatural these two stands can meet and mix, however its not unusual for other strands to mix. Just those specific two are odd.

I found this out today and hope it helps:

www.naturalnews.com...

For Europeans:

Not only thoroughly wash your fresh produce but stay clear of German meat, meat products, dairy and milk.

reply to post by bluemirage5


Thank you for that information, since the second week of May I've been avoiding not only German imported food but all imported foods. I've been recommending this to all family and friends to stick to British grown foods. (Americans to American food and so forth) I also recommend the same to yourselves, best to be safe then sorry, plus it helps local farmers and economy anyway.