posted October 10, 2006 04:03 PM              

if the farmer with e.coli on his spinach and lettuce, or mad cows is put out of busniess...who gets the land and the farm?

Is the farm shut down completely and destroyed or is it cleaned up and sold to another farmer?

Are the consumers, or supermarkets weeding them out or is it government bans?

How were the rates of illness due to ecoli and other food related pathogens in the past? Are the standards getting tougher to meet for farmers or are the farmers becoming more lax in their farming practices.

posted October 10, 2006 04:19 PM              

i believe that eventually, the land is taken over and rebuilt on is why the thought of imminent domain came to mind. who wants to buy land and have to spend thousands of dollars getting it tested as well? i mean - who the hell do they think they are kidding?

i believe the standards are getting tougher to meet for farmers - and not just farmers. since 9/11 - the state, etc. have issued these new testing regulations for all types of stuff and actually sending their people out inspecting these places and FINING for thousands of dollars - those who have not complied with the new testing standards, new equipment.....you should see the fines and they still have to pay the fine and get whatever Notice of Violation (NOV) taken care of. you have to think - they need the funds. the funds or the land - either one.

posted October 10, 2006 04:35 PM              

Well if there's serious contaminents on the land that need to be tested and it's not the fault of the farmer, should the govt be responsible for that? If we cant afford to test the land and the farm is destroyed for something else to be built on it, where are we going to get our produce..are we just going to come to a point where things are only grown in a monopolyg of labs? (Is that what you're getting at?)

posted October 10, 2006 04:44 PM            

There are a few potential scenarios 1) The farms used untreated cow manure on the fields 2) someone used human feces (commonly known as "night fertilizer") on the fields which is against the law 3) someone deliberately tainted the fields.

I would vote for the first or second. When I did a search on this matter (and this is exactly what I used to do for our Health Dept in epidemiology) I found that there is suspicion that a 3rd party grower used improper fertilizer components.

What happens is the spinach is collected from various farms or sent to the processor in a batch. If the E. Coli spinach is combined with other spinach they are all going to be contaminated. All of the washing won't get off all of the organisms. Once processed and bagged you have that bacteria multiplying as the temps get around room temperature. What we saw was spinach bagged on a specific day (and subsquent lots- meaning bagged over a few days depending on the cleaning practices) had the E. coli bacteria. The Elderly, young and immuno compromised are very susceptible to the organism.

I doubt anyone will lose their farms. For the most part they are under the umbrella of Fresh Express - BUT those 3rd party people that used unhealthy fertilization practices with either face a hefty fine or jail time, especially if human feces was used.

PS... this E. coli is the intestinal strain O157. It is spread in ground beef when the butcher does not properly clean the instestines or allows the fecal matter to get into the ground beef itself. That allows for the bacteria to multiply as well as it cannot be killed if the patties aren't cooked all the way.

This outbreak is on level with several that we have had in the past 20 years.

posted October 10, 2006 04:59 PM              

i work at a construction/environmental company and the company specializes in building wells and gas stations - i've noticed the increase in NOVs and new regulations but pid - you post was very informative.

as you both know - strange things have been occurring in between worlds for a while now - i woke up this morning thinking about imminent domain so much, it was the strongest sign i've ever seen in my life. i needed to know what, if anything, this all had to do with it, if anything.

but as you pointed out - there are several things to think about here.

posted October 10, 2006 05:35 PM            

We have areas that are covered with snow over the Winter - Flagstaff- Prescott and others.

I was in Bioterrorism / epidemiology. I had to track and research outbreaks and use MEDSIS and a few other "protected" surveillance systems to compare our own outbreaks to those in other states. Typically, such as in this case of E. coli with spinach, we would get the information about a few patients that showed symptoms, then interview them to track where they had been over two weeks (depending on incubation time). From there we would consult the State health dept and CDC as well as track all other patients. We'd take samples (most often fecal samples) and process them and DNA type them to find out what strain of organization they had been exposed to.

It is a painstaking process where tons of errors or variables can wreak havoc on what the true nature of the illness is. In order to better prepare for that we do tons of case studies and we have actual table tops where symptoms and a timeline is thrown out at us to simulate an outbreak.

I loved it, especially since I no longer had to actually process and test those real life fecal samples LOL...

posted October 10, 2006 05:49 PM            

Arizona Ag stats;

Top 5 agriculture exports, estimates, FY 2005
Rank among states Value
million $
1. Cotton and linters 11 98.9
2. Vegetables and preparations 10 95.8
3. Seeds 6 37.7
4. Dairy products 13 37.0
5. Wheat and products 32 27.0

Top 5 counties in agricultural sales 2002
Percent of state total receipts Million $
1. Yuma County 33.5 802.4
2. Maricopa County 30.9 740.2
3. Pinal County 17.7 424.8
4. La Paz County 3.6 86.6
5. Graham County 3.4 81.9

State total 2,395.4

posted October 10, 2006 10:38 PM              

Sounds like you were involved in some fun detective work. When I was working in the lab at school we were testing drugs on yeast and other fungal infections...also tested to check for various molds from homes under different conditions.

posted October 11, 2006 01:10 PM            

I spent over 10 years in the lab, mostly in diagnostics and research. My main background was in veterinary medicine, but the diagnostic side. I ran all the serology and microbiology tests for the animals in the Univ lab in Maryland and before that I worked on consultations to inform vets as to what the results meant and how we did the tests.

I loved diagnostics, especially in "real live" veterinary medicine, but didn't care for it when it came to research or diagnostics on research animals. Having to euthanize and test sentinel animals was too hard to take and the turn over on research animals broke my heart. That is when I turned more into research in biotech where I could play with microbes in different ways.

LOL.. I guess being a Sagittarian you could say that I am rather diverse in my occupations - one thing leads me to another but they all contain science or at least a relation to science. I really wanted to get into forensics, but married a forensic scientist (which prevented me from working in our state as he as a State expert. Being hired after our relationship began would look too much like nepotism).

The two main themes have always been microbiology / pathogenic disease and research (biotech). I love to write, so writing grants and reports for my biotech company also led me to become project manager on one of our larvicides (I also worked on some of the research). So I went from lab geek to technical sales LOL... After 5 years at the biotech company I moved to a part of Arizona where biotech doesn't exist and found a job in Bioterrorism / epidemiology..

From there I went to the schools office to write grants and become the director of ed services, basically my job is to ensure all of our educators in my county are highly qualified to teach their subject matter by organizing training and writing the grants to fund the training. I also organized the science council due to the standards test introducing Science on the next round at the end of the school year.

When I move to Germany with Bear I will look into becoming a middle school science teacher. The Army will emergency certify me to teach and I can finish my certification program. I think that now, after having so many years under my belt in research and working with the tools we've discovered it would be a blast to teach that to young minds .

And you? You teach math and science don't you? Did you ever want to get into research?

Oh.. the drug testing was most likely sensitivity testing. It is also something I did in the lab when we would have a sick animal. I'd get the fecal swab (yummy) and plate it on several plates, then once I isolated the proper colony- replate and place disks on the plate (usually several antibiotics) and let them grow. The disk with the largest diameter of no growth meant the bugger was sensitive to it.

posted October 11, 2006 08:15 PM              

Biotech is where most of the jobs and money are today anyways, and microbiology adds a certain mystery to the job because you can't see what you're working with and some of the microbes are unpredictable. Forensics sounds fun too...Whats holding you back now...you're not married to a forensic scientist now are you?

I could see you teaching middle school actually...particularly that age group of kids just entering their teen years. Can't see you leaving this field out of boredom. Have you located any english speaking schools there? What subjects would you be interested in teaching?

I supply for math and science...the schools in my region keep me busy. I prefer supply teaching...for now...because my environment is constantly changing and don't know what to expect with each school and classroom I enter. Plus I dont have to be bothered with creating lesson plans and marking tests and assignments. Im sorta doing my own personal study of the schools, teachers and students too...seeing what schools would be best to teach at for me.