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By FRED PRITZKER
Late last summer there was a devastating outbreak of E. coli O111 traced back to the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. 341 people were sickened and one person died.
While the source of the outbreak – the restaurant – was quickly identified, the disease-causing organism was not isolated on the restaurant premises or in the food and water served there. Thus, thefinal outbreak report (just released by the Oklahoma State Department of Health) concluded:
"In the absence of isolating the outbreak organism from any environmental specimen, including restaurant surfaces, food, well water and animal feces, or from a restaurant employee who reported diarrheal illness, the original vehicle of contamination could not be determined. The exact mode of spread within the restaurant was not established, however, the epidemic curve and exposure analyses suggests there was ongoing foodborne transmission of E. coli O111:NM to Country Cottage restaurant patrons between August 15 and August 24, 2008."
Not surprisingly, this outbreak created some political fallout in the Sooner state. The state’s attorney general was quoted as saying “they [OSDH] botched the investigation and are very reluctant to admit they botched the investigation.” He said his own office determined the likely cause of the outbreak was poultry litter that contaminated the restaurant’s well water. Local politicians and, of course, the poultry industry vigorously dispute the attorney general’s accusations.
What is not in dispute, however, is the fact that E. coli O111 is a virulent pathogen that causes severe illness and death. Also not in dispute is the fact that most of the restaurant patrons will never be fully compensated for the losses they suffered. That’s because although the restaurant had insurance, the amount of the coverage is woefully insufficient to cover the harms and losses sustained by the victims. Do the math: even assuming a liability policy of $1,000,000, the average recovery for an outbreak victim would be under $3,000.
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Within a few months of this massive outbreak, the restaurant reopened its doors and presumably is well on the way to building back up its business. That’s probably a good thing, assuming the restaurant owners utilize this tragedy to review and revamp the restaurant’s food safety and sanitation practices.
Of course, the outbreak victims, especially the person who died, don’t have that luxury. Many of them will never recover and even those who do face financial and physical hardship for years to come.
So the restaurant re-opens, the disease spreading vector is never identified, nobody is held accountable and politicians try to advance their careers. What about the victims?
The Locust Grove tragedy illustrates a number of problems – some insoluble, but some fairly easy to remedy. For example, let’s start requiring food purveyors to carry enough insurance to fairly compensate their customers when the food they sell is adulterated with deadly pathogens. This should not be hard or prohibitively expensive.
If the coverage is not available at a fair price in the private sector, let the government underwrite risk pools and excess coverage. There are a plenty of existing programs to model on including flood insurance, crop insurance, vaccine compensation programs, etc.
Insurance is risk spreading when the risk of harm cannot be eliminated. So why should foodborne illness survivors have to go it alone, especially when they are absolutely blameless for the damage they suffer. If we write off toxic assets, can’t we at least underwrite insurance for victims of toxic food?
Fred Pritzker is founder and president of PritzkerOlsen, P.A., a national food safety law firm that represents victims of all major outbreaks of foodborne illness, including the Country Cottage E. coli 0111 event. Mr. Pritzker and members of his firm are frequent guests and commentators about food safety issues and have been interviewed by and profiled in a number of media sources including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Associated Press and CBS News. The firm's telephone number is 1-888-377-8900.
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From a food safety perspective, higher levels of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle manure is problematic. It raises the threat that potentially deadly human pathogens will enter the food supply and make people sick with life-threatening hemoloytic uremic syndrome (HUS). National E. coli lawyers at PritzkerOlsen, P.A., represents victims of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and are actively following the study results in hopes that more prevention measures can be developed.
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