date:Sep 25, 2018
. By the time the outbreak was identified by public health officials, the romaine harvest in Arizona was finished and fields had been tilled. Soil samples would have been useless by then. The short shelf life of romaine meant product samples were virtually impossible to find or test.
Even with the finding that the outbreak strain of E. coli was in the canal water, Ostroff describes the situation as an enigma.
How could the water contaminate such a large area is a key question, Ostroff said. An