Daemen Student Hires E. coli Lawyer For E. coli 0145 HUS Illness Tied to Lettuce
Food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen has been retained by a freshman at Daemen College who is suffering from E. coli HUS tied to the Freshway Foods E. coli O145 lettuce outbreak.
The student is one of at least 12 individuals hospitalized in a romaine lettuce outbreak that has sickened at least 23 individuals in Ohio, Michigan, New York and now Tennessee. She also is one of three who have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening disease that can cause kidney failure, central nervous system damage, bleeding in the brain, pancreatitis and other serious medical conditions..jpg)
The student's illness required three separate hospitalizations and caused a major setback in her studies at the private liberal arts college in Amherst, New York. ABC News is reporting that the two other HUS cases in the outbreak were teen-agers in the Wappingers Falls, New York, public school district.
Fortunately, no deaths have occurred.
Besides the 23 E. coli O145 illnesses confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of the Freshway E. coli outbreak, seven more probable cases are being investigated. Multiple lines of evidence support the finding that shredded romaine lettuce from Freshway, including the Sysco Imperial brand, fueled the outbreak that started last month.
The most recent date for an onset of illness in this outbreak was April 26.
The most common strain of E. coli associated with human illness is E. coli O157. Even though other strains, like O145, can be just as dangerous, O157 is the only E. coli strain that is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Fred Pritzker, founder and president of Pritzker Olsen, said in a press release today that any E. coli strain that produces the toxin that causes injury or death in humans, including O145, should be declared an adulterant and regulated by federal and state agencies.
“Our client’s HUS is no less devastating because it came from O145 rather than O157,'' Pritzker said.
Ohio-based Freshway Foods and Vaughn Foods of Moore, Oklahoma, have both recalled romaine lettuce sourced from a farm in Yuma, Arizona. Vaughn purchased its lettuce from lettuce broker Andrew Smith Co. The FDA continues to investigate where in the food supply chain the lettuce was contaminated.
The recalled lettuce was distributed for use by foodservice establishments and in institutional settings, such as schools. The E. coli O145 outbreak is not related to bagged romaine you buy in the grocery store, although some "grab and go'' salad bars inside grocery stores have carried recalled lettuce.
Pritzker Olsen is continuing to accept cases from this outbreak. Our firm has been involved in virtually every major foodborne illness outbreak, Pritzker Olsen attorneys have recovered millions of dollars for victims seriously harmed or killed by foodborne illness. Attorney Fred Pritzker can be reached at 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE) or by completing the contact form on the side of this Web page.
Nearly 50 people have confirmed or suspected illnesses that began to occur in early- to mid-April around the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Ohio State University in Columbus. New York has one confirmed E. coli O145 illness matching the outbreak strain and 11 other suspected cases.
