Thread: deadly e. coli

I don't want start a political debate here.. (I have bad luck with them, anyway.) But I found this article interesting.. It looks like Russia has taken the stance that the protection of their people from this e. coli is the first priority. I thought that was very cool to see. In the media, some are making it seem as if this was more a political move than a safety one, but to me it seems to be a simple issue - keeping Russians safe from this germ. I know the circumstances are different, but part of me wanted to think that the US would do the same thing for us. (I'll bet $10 against that, though.) Curious to know your thoughts on all this.
Here's a link to the article about this on sciencedaily.com . : NewsDaily: Germany steps up hunt for deadly E.coli source

It does seem silly to me. There is clearly a link to the Hamburg area, where almost all the people who were infected spent some time during the past week or two, and the others seem to have had contact with people who were there. I doubt that something infected got imported, I think probably the contamination happened there. The question is, is that place still contaminated or are the current cases secondary infections? But for any country to stop importing vegetables which do not go via Hamburg seems a bit excessive. You'd be better off not letting anyone from Hamburg in.

Originally Posted by kidkboom

but part of me wanted to think that the US would do the same thing for us

Originally Posted by sperk

My sentiments exactly..

But you know the motto.. =) Caveat emptor; "Пусть покупатель будет бдителен"; Let the buyer beware... And just for good measure "A sucker is born every minute." =)

EU often does all sorts of strange things to Russia in terms of imports etc, so Russia is just taking the opportunity to give back as good as it gets.
The view of all European papers is that it's totally political. I don't see any harm in it, but I doubt it's because anyone in Russia genuinely thinks they'll catch this bug.

Originally Posted by Hanna

The view of all European papers is that it's totally political.

Curious take, considering there are corpses in the morgue and at least according to the Russian news, this is a new, unknown strain of ecoli.

Sperk - practically the only people who got the disease are Germans, German tourists visiting other countries and people who have been in Germany recently, It's only linked to Hamburg, nowhere else in Germany or Europe.
Additionally it's very easy to protect against it in the EXTREMELY unlikely situation that you should encounter it; simply don't eat unwashed cucumbers. So I'd say a wholesale ban on vegetable import from the EU is an overreaction, when if fact, only one veg from one small area is affected and there is an easy preventative method anyway.
But EU is overreacting to Russian issues all the time... so they are doing the same here.

Hanna, you're not quite up to date. The cucumbers were not the cause. It's still not clear what the cause is. It is, however, linked to something located in Hamburg. While the actual cause may still have been a batch of food stuff imported or otherwise (it's not even clear whether vegetables are to blame), it is just as possible that some processing place was the source of the contamination. And right now it is not even established whether the more recent infections are linked directly to dontaminated food or are secondary infections from human to human.

It's not a new strain of E.Coli, it has been encountered before, but never as virulent as now.

True bitpicker, I just read the news!
All the more reason for Russia not to overreact about the vegetables then!

Germany steps up hunt for deadly E.coli source - Yahoo! News

Responding to EU calls that Russia lift its import ban and respect free-trade rules of the World Trade Organization, Putin said: "We cannot poison our people for the sake of some spirit."

Definitely Putin is starting his presidential campaign.

Common Russians usually prefer to ignore any kind of potential danger (at least in much bigger degree than Europeans and Americans). So I believe that nobody really afraid of killer cucumbers. But AFAIK Russian officials often overreacts with such issues. I think it is made for political reasons. Everybody knows that political authority can handle such situation easily so cucumbers are merely a good reason to held some negotiations with counterpart and settle the situation for some bonuses (either big or small).

Haha, yes, if the cucumbers were Russian, then Putin would probably organise a cucumber eating contest or something like that!

Yes, I agree that Russians have a reputation at being a bit wild... In Swedish language it's almost implicit that anything with the prefix "Russian" (rysk) is nickname for something extreme or dangerous... like a Russian jump, Russian Post (very saucy game that kids play, Russian summer/winter and many more.

Apparently Spain is not happy that its cucumers were falsely accused!

Current news: 17 people who caught this e-coli strain could be connected with a certain restaurant in Lübeck where they had a meal between the 12th and 14th of May. Now the lists of suppliers for that restaurant is being examined.

The US have ordered stricter examination of vegetables from Germany and Spain, though the actual import rate for vegetables from these countries into the US is only 0,2%, so there's little to fear. Six US citizens so far have potentially been infected, four of which were in Germany as tourists and two are soldiers stationed in Germany.

Source: Suche nach Ehec-Quelle: Experten untersuchen Spur in Lübecker Lokal - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Wissenschaft

The Russian reaction can be hardly considered as an overreacting implied to get some political score from EU. Russian reaction would be the same for any other country or untreated decease. It can't be considered as overreacting until the problem is settled down. Probably it is overreacting but we can check it only when the problem disappears.

Actually there is no a big conspiracy theory but sometimes Russian government does care about Russians.

Though Russian government certainly will use the case to get some political score in the second place.

People, remember Avian Flu, Swine Flu, etc. These particular kinds of flu were known before. People have been dying from fly every year in every country. This virus can be deadly. But, when someone is paying for a media campaign, the hysteria starts. I'm pretty sure, that people had been dying from some kind of germ before as well. Maybe even from this particular one. That's statistics. But nobody cared since nobody was told to be actually afraid.
We are afraid of only the things we are told to be afraid of by the media. That's insane. This world has gone crazy. All this hysteria is the same thing. Someone's simply trying to get rich by making poor someone else.

Wash your hands often, wash vegetables and fruits before eating, do not drink tap water - those are just the normal rules of hygiene that will never harm.

What concerns the import restrictions imposed by Russia - they're non efficient anyway - remember we have a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, we are not a member of WTO, so our willingness to support the WTO requirements is just an act of good will.
Personally, I think that Russia would lose more than it would gain if it joins the WTO so why should we care at all about poor European farmers?

Once I went to my local grocery store to buy bread, and found several of the packages of bread had dead bugs in them. I hadn't noticed til I'd bought mine and gotten outside. When I did notice, I went right back in and asked to trade it in for another. I saw that the entire line of that company's product was full of these dead bugs, so I reported it to the store manager and asked him to remove the other ones, so others didn't buy them. He said, "No - but I'll take care of it." I left. Went back the next day. Bugs still in the bread. I complained and complained and eventually talked to the chain manager, but it took a lot of effort just to get ANYBODY to care.
Another time, when I was a kid, I worked at a movie theatre, and the pump broke that moved clean water into the soda fountain. The fountain started to dispense metal shavings into the drinks; the Sprite was dark and grey. It was a Friday (big-business day). And our boss said: "Serve the colas and the dark drinks, but don't serve the Sprite." (Thankfully I wasn't posted at the fountain because I would have had a moral dilemma being the guy to sell those.)
It shocks me the things that are done to people in food service that go unreported. And by contrast, the little things that become a big deal.
I still feel kind of stupid for throwing out my spinach sandwich the day I heard about all this vegetable business. That poor sandwich didn't deserve its fate. =)

Originally Posted by kidkboom

It shocks me the things that are done to people in food service that go unreported. And by contrast, the little things that become a big deal.

Yes, but that is how it's done. It's nothing new. My poor daughter had to read The Jungle this past semester. If she weren't a germaphobe already, the book made her one!

News like what I read yesterday don't help either. Headline: 100 grams of EHEC bacteria sufficient to infect all of humanity! I mean, what use is that? Except of course the obvious: sell stupid news.

People need to wise up to the fact that at any time each of them is host to more bacteria, not all of them benign, than the world ever was to humans from the first upright walking ape to today. We're equipped to deal with them.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

People need to wise up to the fact that at any time each of them is host to more bacteria, not all of them benign, than the world ever was to humans from the first upright walking ape to today. We're equipped to deal with them.

To be more specific, those who were equipped are living and whoever weren't - are dead. And whenever the new mutations happen to the microbial life forms (which are the true rulers of the world), the history repeats itself. It's just since the invent of the vaccines the humanity became relaxed.

"A little bit of dirt cleans out the stomach" is a Swedish saying used when people pick up some food that's fallen on the floor, and use it anyway.

At home there is no excuse for not being hygienic, and when eating out, one should definitely avoid cheap restaurants where there is reason to question hygiene.

In the UK, most of the health scares are about Chinese takeaway restaurants, or cheap Indian/Bangladeshi restaurants. I don't like either type of food.

One of my favourite grievances/annoyances are commericals about anti-bacterial wipes and sprays. That is such tosh and rubbish. It is certainly not needed! The use of such products are responsible for the rise of superbugs at hospitals.
Basic washing up liquid and maybe chlorine is all that's needed for cleaining in my opinion.