Response to: Apple Juice Poisoning: The Panic That Wasn't

By Laurie Girand

Source

Forums

Related Articles

I would like to respond to Joanne Jacobs' commentary on the subject of apple juice related food poisoning. (refer to Apple Juice Poisoning: The Panic That Wasn't ) One of the questions that has been raised was why there have not been more law suits, and why not more hysteria. I would have to concur with her that we have grown complacent. Yet, like the village people who have too often heard "Wolf" cried, the wolf may in fact now be at our gates.

Consumers do not know that there is no cure for an E. coli O157:H7 infection. No penicillin just takes care of it. All that doctors can do is try to keep tipping the scales back in their favor as the disease ravages the child's body. The first symptoms are rampant diarrhea and intense stomach cramps. If the child does not receive fluids, the child can die of dehydration. Next, all the color drains from the face of the child, as anemia sets in. If the child is not given a transfusion, the child will die. The child begins to retain waste fluids. They begin to get puffy. As the kidneys cease functioning, dialysis must begin, or the child will die. Knowing that it is E. coli that caused the complications does not change the course of action.

Consumers do not know that because this disease is not a nationally reportable disease. While the State of Washington is taking action, other states are left unaware that an epidemic is beginning and more children are poisoned until the epidemic is understood to be widespread.

Consumers also do not know that doctors don't always recognize the symptoms of this disease, especially if they are unaware of an epidemic, so that while a parent worries about the deteriorating health of the child, doctors may not treat the child appropriately. Many health facilities are inadequate for treating the disease; yet, with diarrhea as the principle symptom, the child is likely to be taken first to a community hospital. Because the most afflicted are the youngest and cannot adequately verbalize their illness, it can be missed until it is too late.

Consumers do not realize that these epidemics will continue until we change our food processing. Animal-to-human contact has given us AIDS, flu, and E. coli O157:H7, and as bacteria and viruses continue to mutate becoming immune to our feeble medicines, we will see more virulent strains.

Consumers do not understand that this risk is in all fresh products. They feel safe because Odwalla has removed the "bad" stuff from the shelves, yet they purchase other produce such as carrots, radishes, mushrooms, or potatoes and feed them to their children without knowing that they can just as easily harbor deadly disease.

The parents of children afflicted with E. coli poisoning know differently. They know that Odwalla reacted as compassionately and quickly as a $50+ million company could and that the company has a culture of health and caring. They know that if Odwalla is guilty of selling tainted juice, they are guilty of giving them to their own children.They know that, unlike the newspapers report, it will be difficult to blame one source of food in particular. Long ago, they threw away the juice bottles-some do not even know which lot the juice came from; therefore, parents cannot perfectly prove that Odwalla juice did this. They cannot be sure that this will not happen to them again. They know that no amount of money will compensate them for the tragedy that has occurred. Driving Odwalla out of business not only hurts the long term financial connection between Odwalla and themselves, but also hurts the company that is most capable of instituting change in the natural foods industry so that this never happens again. The E.coli parents know that right now, all they most want to do is to have their lives return normal.

What the E. coli Parents don't know is their lives will never be normal again. They will never be able to look at diarrhea and not wonder if something is trying to kill their child. They cannot know, as they go back year after year for checkups with kidney specialists, that their child will not someday need one or more of the parents' kidneys. They cannot quantify the long term costs of their child's possibly poorer health. They do not know the names of all the other children affected because most parents are hiding from the news media.

A comparison made to the Alar scare is ludicrous. If you are a parent with small children or elderly parents, you should be concerned. You may have a different opinion about how we can protect ourselves, but you should not be complacent. You should attempt to better educate yourself than the media is able to do; there are many resources available on the World Wide Web. You should not think that it won't happen to you because you don't eat that salami, don't eat at Jack-in-the-Box, don't drink Odwalla fruit juices. The wolf is at the gate, and the next child affected may be your own.

Laurie Girand