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Sprouts infected thousands in late 1990s: report

NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters Health) - Raw sprouts can be hazardous to your health, investigators warn. Sprouts from contaminated alfalfa and clover seeds were responsible for a series of outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness and urinary tract infections in the late 1990s, according to researchers at the California Department of Health and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

"As currently produced, sprouts can be a hazardous food. Seeds can be contaminated before sprouting, and no method can eliminate all (disease-causing organisms) from seeds," Dr. Janet C. Mohle-Boetani of the Division of Communicable Disease Control in Berkeley, California, and colleagues report in the August 21st issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The research team recommends that seed and sprout growers make efforts to reduce contamination, and that people with weak immune systems avoid sprouts altogether.

Mohle-Boetani and her colleagues investigated five outbreaks of salmonellosis and one outbreak of E. coli O157 that occurred in California between 1996 and 1998. During this period, half of all disease outbreaks in the state that crossed county lines were associated with alfalfa or clover sprouts.

The investigators confirmed infections in 600 people and estimate that approximately 22,800 people suffered gastrointestinal illness or urinary tract infections related to sprouts. The outbreaks killed two people.

Alfalfa and clover seeds are a raw agricultural product that may come in contact with Salmonella or E. coli from the feces of birds, rodents or other animals during growth, harvest, processing, storage or shipping, the authors explain. These illness-causing microbes thrive during the process of seed germination and actual plant growth, they add.

"Most consumers and retailers do not cook sprouts, and since bacteria on the seed surface can become internalized during sprouting, washing sprouts is probably an ineffective way to eliminate (any disease-causing microbes)," Mohle-Boetani and colleagues warn.

Salmonella infects the gastrointestinal system, causing cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fever. In rare cases, Salmonella food poisoning can lead to serious, sometimes fatal, complications in small children, the elderly or those with weakened immune systems.

E. coli O157:H7 infection often causes severe bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps. Children younger than 5 years of age and elderly people are particularly vulnerable to a complication of infection with the bacterium called hemolytic uremic syndrome, in which red blood cells are destroyed and the kidneys fail.

SOURCE: Annals of Internal Medicine 2001;135:239-247.

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