High-Tech Company Applying
Techniques To E.Coli Tests

WASHINGTON —(AP)— A high-tech company known for diagnostic systems used in medical tests has adapted the technology to detect E. coli bacteria in food. Experts say it could help combat foodborne pathogens by offering faster and more accurate test results.

IGEN International Inc. long has supplied a technology called ORIGEN for use in medical laboratory tests. Last year, the Gaithersburg, Md.-based company decided to expand and see if the sensitive testing procedure would work on food.

It did, say Agriculture Department researchers. The result: a test from 10 to 100 times more sensitive than other tests for E. coli 0157:H7, a rare and often dangerous strain.

``It allows the producer or the regulatory agency to have a better picture of how prevalent this bacteria is, to keep things out of the food chain,'' said C. Gerald Crawford, the Philadelphia-based USDA researcher who developed the test.

``It certainly is not the magic bullet,'' Crawford said. ``It's another tool ... a very rapid tool.''

E. coli is a common bacterium that lives in the digestive tracts of humans and animals. Some E. coli strains sicken people; one strain — E. coli O157 — is highly toxic, causing bloody diarrhea, severe cramps, and sometimes even kidney damage or death.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate E. coli 0157 sickens up to 20,000 Americans each year, killing several hundred.

USDA researchers used IGEN's technology in a public-private partnership to develop the test.

The test, which is for beef, could benefit consumers who must deal with foodborne illnesses. Figures released last week by the CDC showed E. coli 0157:H7 infections increased 22 percent from 1997 to 1998, after a 15 percent decline from 1996 to 1997.

``It is vital that the meat and poultry industry develop and utilize quicker tests to find hazards in the food supply,'' said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. ``Quick tests for hazards in the food supply will result in significantly safer food in the long run.''

In the nation's largest meat recall, Hudson Foods in August 1997 recalled 25 million pounds of E. coli-contaminated ground beef. The meat sickened 15 people in Colorado and one in Kentucky.

(Though meat gets the most press, some of the largest E. coli outbreaks in this country have been traced to fruits, vegetables and salad dressing. Those have been consistently underreported for some unfathomable reason. A cynic might suspect that a politically correct press has less of an axe to grind against veggies. — Ed.)

Current tests for E. coli use a dipstick method, much like a home pregnancy test, and can take more than a workday.

``The tests are not conducive to being done in a simple, fast format,'' said Bob Connelly, vice president of sales and marketing for IGEN. ``We can offer a test than can be done in the same day.''

IGEN's food technology works much like its medical technology. Beef is ground to a liquid sample and placed in a test tube with IGEN's chemicals and later analyzed for E. coli.

With the new test, results are available in about six hours.

``What it means for consumers is this technology can be, hopefully will be, implemented to make their food safer,'' Connelly said.

Researchers at USDA's food safety and inspection service lab in Athens, Ga., are testing with the new technology. If the food safety division likes it, the government may incorporate the technology into tests by its inspectors.

IGEN also is working to put the product on the commercial market.

More research is underway to develop tests for other foodborne pathogens, such as listeria monocytogenes and salmonella, officials said.