E.Coli Outbreak Cause Unknown,
Cattle And Beef Get Rap Anyway

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. —(AP)— Health investigators are on the phone asking nosy questions, in the laboratory performing genetic tests, at a farm gathering manure samples — all to find the source of an E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least 281 people.

All they know for sure is that the people who fell ill were among the 1800 people at a cookout and concert Sept. 4 in a cow pasture near Petersburg. Twenty were sick enough that they had to be hospitalized.

Maybe the E. coli bacteria were lurking in the beef served at the event. Maybe they were in the water, or on the hands of a food server, or hiding someplace else entirely.

Dozens of state and county officials are trying to find out.

``We're no different from detectives on a crime scene. We kind of tear apart everything we can to come up with the clues that may give us an answer,'' Tom Schafer, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, said Monday. ``We still are going to have to be a little lucky.''

E. coli is a bacteria usually found in the intestines or manure of cattle. People who ingest it can suffer severe cramps, bloody diarrhea and, in extreme cases, kidney failure.

(There they go with cattle and beef again. The fact is that far and away more E. coli cases have been caused by fruits and vegetables, salad dressings, even water — the latter contaminated by human "manure." The media continue to pile blame on cattle and beef, however, because it is not politically correct to criticize veggies and dirty people. — Ed.)

The biggest job for investigators is interviewing people who attended the concert, dubbed Cornstock '99.

Schafer said investigators have the names of about 900 partygoers and have spoken to 551 — asking what they ate and drank, where they sat, whether they washed their hands, whether they waded in a nearby creek or pond.

All the answers, from sick people and healthy alike, are fed into a computer that will search for patterns. If most of the sick people ate the same things or did the same things, it narrows the field, Schafer said.

Other investigators are working in the field — literally. They visited the farm near Petersburg, about 25 miles northwest of Springfield, where Cornstock was held to gather water and manure samples. They also reviewed the site for any less obvious sources of contamination, Schafer said.

The crowd at the free concert ate and drank in a field that had been used as a cow pasture. Owner Tom Baird had raked and cleaned the field of manure, although some traces undoubtedly remained behind.

But Schafer said those traces are unlikely to be the source of contamination, since E. coli will not survive long outside a host animal.

Still, investigators took manure samples Sunday from Baird's herd. If they are carrying E. coli, it suggests the contamination probably came from the cow Baird donated to be cooked at the event, Schafer said.

Scientists can narrow it down even further, he added, by doing a genetic analysis of the E. coli from people who got sick. If they find E. coli in food from the event or in Baird's cattle, they can analyze it and find out whether it is the same strain.

Results of the first tests won't be available until later this week, Schafer said.

It could be weeks, or even months, before the health department finishes its investigation, Schafer said.

And in the end, there might be no definite conclusion; investigators might have to be content with a computer analysis picking the most likely cause.