Atlanta – It may be only a week or less before fresh spinach is available again on supermarket shelves, federal scientists said Tuesday, saying they’re close to pinpointing where the tainted vegetables came from that caused a nationwide outbreak of E. coli.
The outbreak has resulted in one death in Wisconsin, sickened 132 people in 22 states and is suspected in a second death.
But federal disease scientists are saying the worst may be over because they are confident the contaminated spinach came from farms in California where they have concentrated their investigations.
Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said federal disease detectives believe the spinach came from a particular area of central California and several farms there.
“I hope within 24 to 48 hours, we’ll be able to say it’s California and no more than that, and a certain area in that state,” Acheson said. “The Salinas Valley is implicated. The spinach has come from Natural Selections and other companies.”
Salinas Valley produces 75 percent of the nation’s supply of spinach and is home to Natural Selections, which pulled all its fresh spinach from stores nationwide last week.
Since then stores and restaurants around the country have removed all fresh spinach – bagged and loose – until the source of the E. coli can be found.
Acheson said he was optimistic spinach could be back on the market soon even though an investigation will first have to trace the spinach supply chain.
“I’m anticipating we’ll see the numbers (of E. coli cases) continuing to rise,” Acheson said. “But some may later be dropped off. What we are clearly seeing is a significant build-up in cases.
“You can say cases before a certain date are not part of this outbreak. But this is a significant public health emergency.”
