Romaine Lettuce E. Coli Outbreak Spreads To Florida

Another 28 people have been sickened after eating E. coli-tainted romaine lettuce, with Florida and three other states added to the list of states reporting outbreaks, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. The other states are Minnesota, North Dakota and Texas, bringing to 29 the number of states where people have gotten sick.

So far, 149 people have been infected with E. coli from eating the lettuce, which has been traced to the Yuma, Arizona, region, where most of the romaine lettuce sold in the United States in the winter months is produced. This is the largest multi-state E. coli outbreak in the United States in a dozen years, according to the CDC.

The CDC reported that one person in Florida had been infected with E. coli from eating the lettuce.

One death has been reported in California, but there have been no additional deaths, the CDC said in its weekly report on the outbreak, which covers illnesses reported from March 13-April 25. There could be more, given a two- to three-week delay in reporting.

The CDC said that of the 129 people on whom it has information, 64 have been hospitalized, including 17 who developed a type of kidney failure.

Those who have been sickened range in age from 1-88 years, with a median age of 30, and about two in three of those who have become ill are women, the CDC said.

The CDC said that of 112 people sickened with E. coli who were interviewed by public health officials, 91 percent of them had eaten romaine lettuce in the weeks before they became ill. That percentage is about twice as high as those who got sick from eating romaine lettuce in 2006 and 2007, according to the agency.

The CDC has advised consumers and restaurants to avoid romaine lettuce unless they can verify that it was not grown in the Yuma region. Romaine lettuce has a shelf life of several weeks, and contaminated lettuce could have been purchased before the illnesses were known.

More information on the location of the E. coli outbreaks can be found here.

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