What does E Coli Look Like?

Close your eyes and think back to 1997. It was a simpler time; Mark Morrison's "Return of the Mack" was heating up Discmans everywhere and Leonardo DiCaprio was "on top of the world" in Romeo + Juliet. Bill Clinton became -- wait a second, how are you reading this with your eyes closed?

You may remember an E. Coli outbreak in Colorado that sparked a massive food recall that, at the time, was the largest in history. Hudson Foods was forced to recall 25 million pounds of beef after the crisis.

While there have been notable outbreaks that proved fatal (four children died in 1993 from meat sold at Jack in the Box and a three-year old girl suffered the same fate in 2001 after eating contaminated watermelon at a Milwaukee Sizzler), American food and health organizations have managed to control these incidents relatively well with a combination of technology and thorough investigation. That's the beauty of America: we may not have the faintest idea of how many unlicensed guns are on the streets, but if there's something wrong with a cheeseburger, we're all over it. Germany, our glutton-in-arms, is in the throes of an E.

Coli outbreak so heinous that their largest news magazine, Der Spiegel, calls it "an embarrassment for a nation famed for its economic prowess and efficiency." The aggressive, mutant strain of the bacteria has caused (at the current count) 27 deaths and German officials appear clueless. While they are confident the majority of cases started at a large wholesale food market in Hamburg, a series of miscues and wild goose chases have put any hope of finding the specific origin in doubt.

Germany's meticulous bookkeeping is famous; individual mechanics at their automotive plants sign automobile engines after building them. How does such an organized nation make such a mess of a public health scare? Quite frankly, they're just not any good at investigating foodborne outbreaks.

America has registries where samples of gastro-intestinal infections are analyzed and stored. These databases are checked by the CDC daily to pinpoint any potential outbreaks. In 2006 this integrated network, called PulseNet, caught two clusters of infections in Oregon and Wisconsin roughly a week apart.

Alarm bells went off and investigators mobilized to conduct an investigation that led them to believe that fresh spinach was the culprit. Within two weeks the E. Coli-tainted spinach was traced to three counties in California and the crisis was quelled.

Three people were killed but cooperation between the CDC, FDA and other organizations prevented a more widespread outbreak. According to reports, the current German outbreak's first patient came down with the symptoms of E. Coli ingestion around May 1.

The Robert Koch Institute (their equivalent of the CDC) didn't raise an E. Coli alert until May 19. Unlike in America, suspected outbreak-prone bacterial infections in Germany aren't entered into a constantly updating, computerized database.

They are reported once a week (on the third workday, if you want to be exact and moronically bureaucratic) and the state then has another week to run tests and report it to the Robert Koch Institute. It's like taking a cab to the airport, renting a car and driving to an ambulance instead of just calling 911. Weeks passed before a proper investigation could begin.

Upon interviewing the patients who hadn't lost consciousness, investigators assumed they found the culprit: Spanish cucumbers sold at the wholesale food market in Hamburg. The importance of halting a bacterial outbreak as soon as possible was (and still is) becoming clearer by the minute. Meanwhile, merchants at Hamburg's wholesale food market were obviously unable to sell produce and many sold off their remaining stock to be used as fertilizer or biogas, effectively destroying all evidence.

Researchers may never discover the cause of this outbreak, but it is clear those 19 days between the first patient's initial symptoms and the sounding of the E. Coli alarm were far too long. We asked Douglas Karas of the FDA if Germany has reached out for help in containing the outbreak.

He said the FDA offered assistance and their German counterparts responded by asking them to "provide copies of the FDA's regulations and guidance documents related to some fresh produce products." Many of those regulations can be found online. What type of produce caused the outbreak, however, may never be known.

Nick Greene isn't a professional scientist, but he tries really hard. Follow him on Twitter!