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Sir Elton John has been forced to cancel a string of concerts after contracting E.coli and an aggressive bout of influenza. The 62-year-old had already pulled out of a series of concerts in Dublin, London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield citing ill-health. But gigs in the U.S. cities of Seattle, Washington and and Portland, Oregon were yesterday shelved after the singer was admitted to hospital. Yesterday, a spokesman for Sir Elton was keen to play down reports of his condition, saying: 'He is recovering from a case of serious influenza with minor complications. We are confident he will be back on...

Beware of the blob—this time, it's for real. As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says. Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer. The season's warm weather makes seawater more stable, which facilitates the bonding of the organic matter that makes up the blobs. Now, due to warmer temperatures, the mucilages are forming in winter too—and lasting for months. Until now, the light-brown "mucus" was seen...

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes. Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed. Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that...

Bethea said federal officials tested the river and found the E. coli bacteria level was 42 times greater than the highest safe level. “There is no way you want to get in or even touch water [this dirty],” Bethea said. “I’ve never seen the water so filthy. It was just filthy, and it didn’t smell very good in some places.” The river tour also found massive shoreline damage, including collapsed banks and fallen trees. --snip-- The U.S. Park Service on Wednesday shut down use of portions of the Chattahoochee, citing the dumping of raw sewage from broken sewage lines in...

Food poisoning is a common, usually mild, but sometimes deadly illness according to eMedicineHealth. Typical symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea that occur suddenly (within 48 hours) after consuming a contaminated food or drink. Depending on the contaminant, fever and chills, bloody stools, dehydration, and nervous system damage may follow. These symptoms may affect one person or a group of people who ate the same thing (called an outbreak). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in the United States, food poisoning causes about 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and up to 5,000 deaths each...

A Nestle plant linked to an outbreak of illness has been shut temporarily, and the company said Monday that it expects to lay off more than 200 workers as a result. Preliminary results "indicate a strong association with eating raw prepackaged cookie dough," the CDC says. "It's likely that we're going to have some temporary layoffs at that facility," Nestle spokeswoman Roz O'Hearn said of the Danville, Virginia, facility that was churning out refrigerated cookie-dough products until Thursday. About 550 people work at the factory, but only about half of them work on cookie dough, she said. The rest work...

(There's a toll to eating raw cookie dough.) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told consumers today not to eat any varieties of prepackaged Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough because the products could be contaminated with a potentially deadly form of E. coli. Since March, at least 66 people from 28 states have gotten sick after eating the dough. Of those, 25 people were hospitalized and seven developed a severe complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which leads to kidney damage and lifetime health issues and is often responsible for E. coli...

LONDON (AP) - An unemployed chemist was jailed Tuesday for spraying a mix of urine and feces on food, wine and children's books in several British stores. Sahnoun Daifallah was sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of contaminating goods. The 42-year-old Algerian carried a mix of his waste in a container of weed killer concealed in a laptop bag, a court found.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota company has won federal approval to become the first in the U.S. to market an E. coli vaccine for cattle, a new weapon against a foodborne disease that can cause serious illness in people and even death. Epitopix LLC was given a conditional license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to sell its vaccine. Nayyera Haq, a USDA spokeswoman, called it "an important step toward improving food safety in this country," and a major beef group agreed. "It really is a major milestone for our industry," Michelle Rossman, director of beef safety research for the...

E.coli can have a bad reputation. But a hippy scientist and an unemployed banker harnessed the benefits of this bacterium - and launched the biotechnology revolution, says Harold Evans. We have to change the adage - man's best friend may not have four legs and bark. In fact, the creature I have in mind is only a ten-thousandth of an inch long and answers to the name E.coli. If you're one of the zillions of hypochondriacs on our planet, you will know that this is not Mr Edward Coli of Twickenham, but the bacterium Escherichia coli - E.coli for short...

Evolution as Efficiency Expert Feb 06, 2009 — Who would have thought that a lowly bacterium is a “master of industrial efficiency”? That’s what a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science called it. E. coli, the best-studied microbe, “can be thought of as a factory with just one product: itself,” a press release said. “It exists to make copies of itself, and its business plan is to make them at the lowest possible cost, with the greatest possible efficiency.” Dr. Tsvi Tlusty at Weizmann marveled at the efficiency of the machinery in the factory: RNA polymerase, which transcribes DNA...

ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- A St. Cloud man, and self-proclaimed John McCain hater, was arrested Wednesday for putting bags of dog poop in the bed of a pickup truck with McCain-Palin stickers. SNIP The owner of the truck said he put McCain-Palin campaign stickers on his truck about two weeks ago. Shortly after, he started finding small bags of dog poop in the back of the truck. Wednesday morning, the owner’s mother saw a neighbor putting bags of poop in the truck and called police. David Vandelinden, 45, of St. Cloud was identified as the suspect, and admitted to placing...

Amoebas may vomit E. coli on your greens 13:59 02 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Harmless protozoa that live on grocery store greens can shelter deadly food pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella. A laboratory study has found that food pathogens survive being eaten by protozoa living on spinach and lettuce. The temporary asylum might help bacteria stick onto leafy greens or resist efforts to kill them before packaging. Whether the shelter the protozoa provide contributes to pathogen outbreaks, however, remains to be seen. A team led by microbiologist Sharon Berk, of Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, fed...

Biological switch triggers E. coli to swim towards chemical. Researchers have hacked into the navigation system of the bacterium Escherichia coli , causing it to hunt down a widely used herbicide called atrazine. The finding could help improve efforts to clean up the environment using biological tricks. Escherichia coli has receptor proteins on its cell surface that can identify chemicals of interest, enabling the bacterium to follow a chemical along its concentration gradient to its source. The recognition information is passed along the cell, eventually triggering its whip-like tail, or flagellum, to rotate either one way to move forward or...

Lasting effects - Some food-poisoning victims face long-term health problems By LAURAN NEERGAARD/Associated Press Alyssa Chrobuck, who was hospitalized with E. coli in 1993, displays a photo of her as a child in a hospital bed and a few of the many medications she takes. Now 20, the Seattle resident has a host of unusual health problems that she says her doctors have attributed to that illness. Photo by ELAINE THOMPSON/Associated Press WASHINGTON - It’s a dirty little secret of food poisoning: E. coli and certain other foodborne illnesses can sometimes trigger serious health problems months or years after patients...

Tolleson Police busted a human smuggling ring early Sunday after they found dozens of illegal immigrants hiding behind produce in an 18-wheeler. "I haven't ever seen so many concealed in one place," said Sgt. Lisa Mendoza of the Tolleson Police Department.  "We run into smaller situations, people in vans but never on this scale here." Tolleson police got the call shortly after midnight from a passer-by who felt suspicious about the semi. Officers arrived and after opening the back, found a truck full of green bell peppers. "The peppers were in the middle so the officer was able to climb...

FORT WORTH -- A refrigerated trailer containing more than 14,000 pounds of ground beef, some contaminated with E. coli bacteria, was stolen Thursday from a Fort Worth meat production company, officials said Friday. Authorities told the public not to buy beef from roadside stands or in parking lots. The meat was in a trailer, not hitched to a tractor, on the parking lot of American Fresh Foods, 1301 Northpark Drive, just northeast of downtown off Samuels Avenue. The company sells ground beef to grocery stores and food-service operations. The thief or thieves must have brought a tractor to haul off...

U.S. agriculture giant Cargill recalls ground beef Agricultural giant Cargill Inc. said on Saturday it is recalling over 1 million pounds of ground beef distributed in the United States because of possible E. Coli contamination. Cargill Meat Solutions said the 1.084 million pounds (491,700 kg) of ground beef was produced at the Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, facility between October 8 and October 11, and distributed to retailers across the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture returned a confirmed positive for the E. coli bacteria on a sample produced on October 8, the company said. Symptoms of E. coli 0157:H7 illness, the strain...

Totino's and Jeno's pizza recalled due to E. coli Almost five million Totino's and Jeno's frozen pizzas with pepperoni toppings are being recalled because the pepperoni may be contaminated with E. coli, General Mills Inc said on Thursday. General Mills, which owns the Totino's and Jeno's brands, said the recall affects about 414,000 cases of pizza products currently in stores and all similar pizza products that might be in consumers' freezers. Each case contains 12 pizzas. The possible E. coli contamination was uncovered by state and federal authorities investigating 21 E. coli-related illnesses in 10 states. General Mills said nine...

Four children became ill from E. coli bacteria last month after eating ground beef patties purchased at three Sam's Club stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the Minnesota Department of Health said Friday. All four cases were related to American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties that were purchased at Sam's Club stores in the Twin Cities metro area. Officials said the meat was bought in stores in August and September and people got sick between Sept. 10 - Sept. 20. All four cases were children. Two of the cases developed hemolytic uremic syndrome and were hospitalized. One case has been...

TRENTON, N.J. The Topps Meat Co. on Saturday expanded its recall of frozen hamburger patties that may be contaminated with the E. coli bacteria and sickened more than a dozen people in eight states. Topps said it was recalling 21.7 million pounds of ground beef products distributed to retail grocery stores and food service institutions throughout the United States, up from the 332,000 pounds it recalled on Tuesday. The recall represents all Topps products with either a "sell by date" or a "best if used by date" between Sept. 25 this year and Sept. 25, 2008. The Elizabeth-based company said...

The sense of déjà vu was eerie. First the California Department of Food and Agriculture posted a press release on its site: It had ordered a recall of raw cream produced by Organic Pastures Dairy Co. Then the Associated Press came out with a story...

Metz Fresh, LLC announced it found traces of Salmonella bacteria in its spinach bags and is voluntarily recalling them, even though none has apparently been infected. This case comes nearly a year after a nationwide outbreak of illness was traced to a batch of bagged California spinach that was tainted with a deadly strain of E. coli bacteria. The spinach was sold to retail outlets and food service providers across the United States and Canada under the Metz Fresh label in 10-ounce and 16-ounce bags, as well as in 4-pound cartons and in 2.5-pound four-pack cartons, with tracking codes 12208114,...

ASSOCIATED PRESS HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. - Health officials on eastern Long Island are warning consumers to cook ground beef products thoroughly after seven people became infected with E. coli contamination in the early weeks of the summer. All seven patients, including an 8-year-old North Carolina girl who was hospitalized after her kidneys shut down, are now recovering, Dr. Humayun J. Chaudhry, the Suffolk County health commissioner, said Tuesday. Chaudhry stressed no specific brand of ground beef has been identified; it was purchased at various locations around Long Island. He also said the majority of those who became ill between June 9...

CHINA GROVE, N.C. – Captain’s Galley, the restaurant linked to an E. coli outbreak in Rowan County, has been shut down after health officials confirmed that a goat was slaughtered inside the restaurant. The Rowan County Health Department announced today they learned of the slaughter from an anonymous tip by a former employee, which was confirmed by management and ownership. They’re not saying the slaughter is the exact cause of the E. coli outbreak, which sickened 20 people and killed one woman. But health officials say it is biologically plausible that the goat slaughter may have been the source of...

A meat supplier has greatly expanded a ground beef recall, which now includes about 5.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen meat that may be contaminated with E. coli. David Goldman, acting administrator of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, announced on Saturday that the recall would be expanded to include products with sell-by dates from April 6-April 20. The beef, sold in 11 Western states, was distributed by California-based United Food Group LLC. Goldman said that none of the latest batch of suspect beef is in stores now because the product would be well past its expiration date,...

SPRINGDALE, Ark. (AP) — Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. recalled more than 40,000 pounds of ground beef Friday after samples tested at a Sherman, Texas, plant showed signs of E. coli contamination in meat shipped to Wal-Mart stores in 12 states. No illnesses had been reported. Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. said the recall is not related to contaminated ground beef distributed by California-based United Food Group LLC. The recalled products were sent to Wal-Mart stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, Tyson said.

I have a feeling ecoli is only the beginning of what is to come for nation-wide illnesses. This just has to do with cleanliness...........

A Michigan firm that delivers meat products to Arkansas is recalling more than 64 tons of beef due to possible e-coli contamination. The USDA says Davis Creek Meats and Seafood shipped the beef between March 1 and April 30. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Recall_023_2007_Release.pdf

AN unhappy wife fed her husband dog excrement in a curry, the BBC has reported. Jill Martin, 47, pleaded guilty in a Scottish court to culpable and reckless conduct against her ex-husband Donald Martin. The court heard that Martin served the dinner to her husband and started laughing as he began to eat it. At first she claimed she had laced the dish with arsenic but then confessed she had added dog excrement , the BBC reported. Martin's defence lawyer Terry Gallanagh compared the case to "an episode of Desperate Housewives", and said that at the time of the curry...

NAPA, Calif. — State health officials announced a recall in five states of frozen ground beef patties after at least three Napa County children who ate at Little League baseball snack shacks were sickened by E. coli. The recall was issued Friday for about 100,000 pounds of frozen patties produced by Merced-based Richwood Meat Co. Inc. from April to May 2006 and distributed in California, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The children all fell ill after eating hamburgers at the St. Helena and Calistoga Little League fields, and have since recovered, said Karen Smith, Napa County's public health officer. Those...

The Southern California farm that grew the green onions that were first linked to and then cleared in last year’s E. coli outbreak has filed a libel lawsuit against Taco Bell Corp. Boskovich Farms, Inc. filed the lawsuit last week in Orange County Superior Court, alleging the Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM) unit continued to link its green onions to the December outbreak that sickened more than 70 people in the Northeast despite knowing the produce was not contaminated. “Taco Bell engaged in an irresponsible and intentional crusade to save its own brand at the expense of an innocent supplier,“ Thomas...

Food Wars New York Times on E. coli outbreaks: Conservatives did it. By Alex Avery According to the New York Times, not only are conservatives responsible for the problems of Iraq, Iran, and global warming, they are also to blame for this fall’s E. coli outbreaks in spinach and lettuce that killed three and sickened several hundred. In a January 2 piece, Adam Cohen of the Times editorial board writes that “harmful bacteria are rampant in meatpacking plants and in produce fields” in large part because Bush “slashed the number of Food and Drug Administration inspectors” and “installed a former...

The recent E. coli outbreaks are playing as a familiar morality tale of too little regulation. The real story is a much bigger scandal: How special interests have blocked approval of a technology that could sanitize fruits and vegetables... The technology is known as food "irradiation," a process that propels gamma rays into meat, poultry and produce in order to kill most insects and bacteria. It is similar to milk pasteurization, and it's a shame some food marketer didn't call it that from the beginning because its safety and health benefits are well established. The American Medical Association, the Centers...

Week of Dec. 16, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 25 , p. 394 Salad DoubtsPreventing and controlling pathogens on produce Aimee Cunningham Spinach's healthy reputation suffered a severe blow this fall. On Sept. 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta learned that the raw leafy green was the prime suspect in a spate of virulent Escherichia coli infections. The next day, the Food and Drug Administration advised consumers not to eat any bagged fresh spinach. Two weeks later, the FDA announced that it had traced the tainted greens to one California company that bags spinach under several brand...

Lettuce has been identified as the most likely source of an E. coli outbreak linked to Taco Bell.

NEW YORK — Nearly three dozen people fell ill, including 14 who were hospitalized, with symptoms consistent with infection by the E. coli bacteria after eating at a Taco John's restaurant, a local health department said. Test results were expected Monday. The Taco John's restaurant has removed any suspected ingredients from its menu and sanitized the facility, said Tom O'Rourke, the Black Hawk County Health Department director.

Green onions suspected of sickening Taco Bell customers in six states have been traced to one of Ventura County's largest vegetable growers, but authorities said Thursday it was too early to blame anyone for the outbreak. Taco Bell Corp. voluntarily removed green onions from its restaurants Wednesday after discovering that the "vast majority" of at least 58 people who suffered E. coli food poisoning in the last week, mostly in New Jersey and New York, had eaten at a Taco Bell, federal officials said Thursday. No one has died, but 48 people have been hospitalized with kidney failure or other...

New Jersey asks Taco Bells to throw out their foodBy Nichola GroomLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - New Jersey health officials addressing an E.coli outbreak on Wednesday asked Taco Bell restaurants in the state to throw out all their food and better train workers in hygiene and food handling. At least 47 people in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have been infected with E.coli in the last few weeks, and dozens more potential cases are being investigated. Many of the infected people had eaten at Taco Bell prior to becoming sick, the states said. New York state officials on Wednesday raised...

Number Of Confirmed Cases In N.Y., N.J. Reaches 39 Source Of Bacteria Undetermined, But Food Products Sent To Labs For Testing (CBS/AP) TRENTON, N.J. At least 14 people in two counties on Long Island have been affected by the recent E. coli outbreak that was first reported in central New Jersey. Officials say three people in Nassau County and 11 people in Suffolk County are being treated in the outbreak, though there is no confirmation yet as to whether the outbreak in New Jersey and the one in New York are related. Eight Taco Bell restaurants on Long Island have...

Investigators searching for the source of E. coli bacteria that contaminated fresh spinach resulting in a 26-state outbreak of food poisoning have found the suspect strain in the gut of a wild pig killed on the Salinas Valley ranch where the tainted produce was grown. The same strain of E. coli had already been found in cattle pastured on land surrounding the 50-acre spinach field. On Thursday, state officials said more samples of the strain were found: in the pig, in other cow manure samples, and in water from a creek located a mile downslope from that field. Investigators had...

WASHINGTON - Wild pigs may have spread deadly bacteria onto a California spinach field, sparking an outbreak that killed three people and sickened more than 200 others nationwide, investigators said Thursday. State and federal investigators have narrowed their focus to the ranch, where boar trampled fences that had hemmed in a spinach field. Samples taken from a wild pig, as well as from stream water and cattle on the ranch, have tested positive for the same strain of E. coli implicated in the outbreak, said Dr. Kevin Reilly of the California Department of Health Services. Investigators continue to look at...

The same strain of deadly bacteria that sickened dozens of people nationwide has been found at a cattle ranch in California's Salinas Valley within a mile of spinach fields, investigators said today. Investigators still can't be sure if the E. coli found in cow manure contaminated the fields, but said the find warrants further investigation. "We do not have a smoking cow at this point," said Dr. Kevin Reilly, deputy director of the Prevention Services Division of the California Department of Health Services. Nevertheless, Reilly called the match an important finding.

Popeye the Sailor Man would have approved of the green, leafy spinach gobbled up by Sadex Corp. officials early Wednesday morning. Popeye definitely would not have approved of the spinach if he could have seen it under a microscope before it underwent irradiation -- the spinach contained 5 million colonies of E.coli bacteria per gram. "You would have been better off to have a cow come and dump on it," said David Corbin, chairman and chief executive officer of the Sadex Corp. Officials at the Sadex Corp. irradiated the highly contaminated spinach at the Sioux City plant, 2650 Murray St....

CRAWFORD COUNTY - The Department of Health and Human Services confirms 11 cases of E. Coli in Crawford County. Health officials said they have tested 11 positive cultures. They say all are connected to Elite Kids Academy in Van Buren. More than a week after the first child who attends the center is diagnosed with the E. Coli nearly a dozen more individuals have contracted the bacteria. After the incident the center voluntarily closed its doors. Workers spent six days cleaning every inch of the building hoping to rid the daycare of the bacteria after a child was diagnosed on...

Lettuce from California's Salinas Valley recalled over E. coli concerns By RACHEL KONRAD (Associated Press Writer) October 08, 2006 4:41 PM EDT SAN FRANCISCO - Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration lifted its warning on fresh spinach grown in California's Salinas Valley, a popular brand of lettuce grown there has been recalled over concerns about E. coli contamination. The lettuce does not appear to have caused any illnesses, Salinas-based Nunes Co. Inc. said in a statement. The company initiated a voluntary recall Sunday of green leaf lettuce purchased last week under the Foxy brand name. Foxy...

Botulism case said tied to carrot juice TAMPA, Fla. - Investigators believe botulism toxin from bottled carrot juice paralyzed a woman, the fourth person thought to be poisoned by bacteria in the drink. The unidentified woman is unresponsive and has been hospitalized since mid-September, said Jylmarie Kintz, epidemiologist for the Hillsborough County Health Department. Three people in Georgia experienced respiratory failure and remain hospitalized on ventilators since drinking the bottled carrot juice a month ago, according to federal officials. The trio were from Washington County, Ga., and shared a meal Sept. 7 that included carrot juice made by Bolthouse Farms,...

BOISE, Idaho - A 2-year-old boy who died from kidney failure last month had been infected with the same strain of E. coli bacteria that prompted a nationwide consumer warning on fresh spinach, health officials said Thursday. Kyle Allgood was the second confirmed death in the outbreak, which also killed an elderly Wisconsin woman and sickened at least 190 other people. "This confirms what we suspected for quite some time," said Ross Mason, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. The boy died Sept. 20 in Salt Lake City after developing a type of kidney failure caused...

(AP) SALINAS, Calif. The FBI searched two spinach packaging companies Wednesday for evidence in the nationwide E. coli outbreak that sickened 192 people. Agents from the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration used warrants to search the San Juan Bautista plant of Natural Selection Foods LLC and a Growers Express plant in Salinas to determine whether they followed food safety procedures. Federal health officials said early in their investigation that deliberate contamination was not suspected. "We are investigating allegations that certain spinach growers and distributors may not have taken all necessary or appropriate steps to ensure that their spinach...

Federal food safety officials said fresh spinach is "as safe as it was before the outbreak," even though investigators have not determined the cause of a deadly E. coli outbreak. FDA officials said yesterday that consumers should continue to avoid spinach recalled Sept. 14 by Natural Selection Foods LLC, a fresh produce processor based in San Juan Bautista, Calif. Four other companies have recalled spinach they got from Natural Selection. But officials cleared spinach grown in the Salinas Valley, after warning consumers for the past week not to eat spinach from that area.