Minnesota High School Deer Experiment Causes E. coli Infections in 29 Students
A Minnesota high school science class received an inadvertent lesson in microbiology and pathology when 29 of 117 students in five class periods were sickened with E. coli O103:H2 traced to deer they shot, field-dressed, butchered, marinated and consumed as part of a class project.
The outbreak happened in the fall of 2010 after teachers oversaw a student hunt for six whitetails. A seventh deer was gathered from the scene of a roadside accident and cleaned to make kabobs, like the others. The bamboo skewers were marinated in five-gallon buckets before being grilled.
The episode was studied by scientists at the Minnesota Department of Health and a paper was published in the latest edition of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
None of the 29 case patients in the outbreak suffered hemolytic uremic sydrome (HUS), a complication of toxic E. coli infection that shuts down a person's kidneys and can lead to stroke, heart attack, neurological damage and other severe illness.
Interviews with students in the class showed that hand-washing after handling raw venison was a factor in preventing E. coli transmission. Some mistakes that led to illness included using the same plate for handling raw and cooked venison and undercooking the meat.
The researchers did not identify the high school by name or location. The kids who got sick started to show symptoms a little more than two days after they prepared and ate the venison. If your child was sickened in the Minnesota high school deer E. coli outbreak of 2010, you may contact a food illness lawyer at PritzkerOlsen, P.A., for a free case consultation at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) Our firm currently represents E. coli victims from other outbreaks and we are one of the very few law firms in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. Our offices are located in Minneapolis.
