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Let's take a look at a specific case where the investigative
work is well documented—an outbreak in 1993 where four children in
the Northwest died, and hundreds of others were violently ill after eating
hamburgers at a Jack-in-the-Box drive-in.
Similar symptoms had shown up in outbreaks
dating back to 1981, but scientists were mystified because the disease
didn't seem to have a known cause. After several years of investigation,
scientists identified a new strain of what had been known as a harmless
bacteria commonly found in human as well as animal intestines. That was
E. coli. Then the question became: how it is entering the food
chain?
Because the outbreaks seemed to be associated
with ground beef, they looked at the feedlots, but could find no trace
of E. coli in the beef cattle.
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