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Stock Show a Denominator in Colorado E. coli Cases

By PritzkerLaw

Health officials in Denver are investigating a correlation between a growing number of E. coli O157:H7 infections and attendance at the National Western Stock Show.

Dr. Chris Urbina of Denver Public Health told the Denver Post that 20 people have been infected with the same strain of E. coli O157:H7, including 16 children who attended the two-week animal show in Denver that ended January 25.

"We are trying to figure out the source -- whether food, water or animals,'' Urbina said.

A spokesman for the Stock Show said officials are cooperating with the investigation but stressed that no one has yet established a scientific link. Urbina says the number of lab-confirmed infections is expected to grow. More than 643,000 people attended the animal show in Denver, many of them children on school or family outings. The youngest child to be sickened with the pathogen is 17 months old.

Because it sometimes takes eight to 10 days after exposure to the organism for a child to feel sick, health officials fear that some infected children returned to day care centers or schools and further spread the E. coli.

PritzkerOlsen Attorneys, a national food safety law firm, is currently representing victims of the nationwide Salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter and peanut products from the South Georgia processing plant of Peanut Corporation of America. PritzkerOlsen has considerable experience and a reputation for success in representing survivors of all foodborne illnesses, especially E. coli O157:H7 and a complication of the infection known as Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, or HUS.

In the peanut butter Salmonella outbreak, firm president Fred Pritzker represents the families of two Minnesota women who died with infections matching the outbreak strain. He has already filed a wrongful death lawsuit in one of the cases and will soon file a second one.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).