Are you concerned about the E. Coli outbreak that has spread to 6 states?

i wash my hands, i dont eat out often, and i dont eat meat... not that concerned.

I have Escherichia coli inside me, unless I have contact with other people's crap, I won't have a problem.

LOL- people do seem to freak over E. coli without realizing that for the most part, they are our friends and protect us from much worse.

Exactly.
;)

I think right now would be a bit early to be concerned... time will tell, but this doesn't seem too out of the ordinary, especially for this time of year.

The problem may be that too many of you all are not washing your hands before you leave the restrooms....

Had a confrontation with a waiter in a Outback Steak House just a few weeks ago when I stopped him as he left the toilet stall and asked him to wash his hands. Serious words exchanged, and I watched carefully as he washed and I handed him the paper towels with
which to dry. Next time, of course not, as washing hands was just not part of his upbringing or cultural values.

So far, I've never caught an employee not washing their hands, at least not to my knowledge, but I would have gone to the manager. When I worked in food service, I usually waited to use the hand-washing sink in the kitchen, especially when the restroom was busy, until I realized how that looked. No one called me on it, but I did always wash.

Some people don't realize you need to wash after using a broom or a mop, too. That is why there is a sink in the kitchen that is set aside only for washing hands and it's usually required by law. It also has to be a certain distance from where food is prepared and you have to wash your hands in a specific way. Many states have even started requiring a hands-free device to turn on and off the water.

Yuck.... I know we roll the dice everytime we go out to eat. Too bad you didn't have a cellphone video of that waiter leaving without washing.

Tell me about it! I saw an ad online that got the point across really well. It was basically an over-size picture of a man that was put on the bathroom door and door frame in such a way that the handle or doorknob would be right in his crotch, but it wasn't obscene. The caption simply said, "wash your hands."

When I go into a restaurant and sit down and I am handed a menu, after I place my order I get up and wash my hands. I think about the fact I handled the doorknob entering the place, that I handled the back of my chair pulling it out, that I handled the menu that a thousand of other people handled. Think of amusement parks where you lean on some que railing or drag your hands along that rail that thousands of other sweaty hands had been on before me. Some of those hands wiped their owner's butts earlier with toilet paper and were not washed afterwards.

I appreciate you doing the right thing. All it takes is one person or any of the patrons who did not wash their hands after wiping their butt to handle a menu before me to spread some e. coli in my direction.

I don't want to be a germ-a-phobe and live in fear but I do try to be aware of reducing my exposure

WOW, an amazing amount of useful information. Thank you.

Yes because these days you never know where your food is coming from and what conditions it was raised or grown under. We should give more support to the agency that keeps our food supply safe.

That's one way to get it. You can also get it from food that is improperly handled and/or cooked.

no and I wasn't afraid of the swine flu back in 2009

Two very different organisms. But you're right not to be overly concerned.

yeah I live in florida

I grow my own food, I leave worrying about things like this to the idiot class as corporate America poisons them in the name of higher profit margins and bonus building.

Lol.

Nope.

Quite by accident I learned just yesterday that the most commonly used artificial sweeteners such as "Sweet N Low" and those used in "diet" soft drinks like Coke, are actually made from a process using e.coli to ferment some concoctions. Can you imagine how much of our diet and foods are exposed to this dangerous bacteria? So much for the
corporate-owned FDA agency we trust so much to protect our health. Look up a reference to the product called PHENYLAILANINE, from which these "sweeteners" are derived.

Once again it is money that is having an effect on our safety. Dont' these people eat?

Yes, they ignore the obvious and accept the corporate claims that "all is well and safe".

When I was in high school, the father's of three of my classmates were salesmen for cigarette companies, and they passed out samples on their smokes on the campus.
All three men died of lung cancers before the age of 45, leaving three families with a total of eight children, without a wage earner. Still, today, there are people employed as cigarette salespersons and 400,000 American citizens will die this year as a result of lung diseases caused by cigarettes. As the sales force die, others will be hired, and the harm will go on, praised by those who care little to nothing about humans and reward Wall Street for their successes. There is no limit to the extent to which corporate goals for profit will deny the destruction and harm caused by their operations and products.

Yes, those people eat. E.coli is used to grow cells (b/c it replicated quickly) and the cells are killed and the desired proteins extracted.....there is no concern for E. coli. getting into your food from sweeteners.

Phenylalanine is also an essential amino acid that is necessary for you body to function (you cannot make it in your body, you must get it from other sources).

Source: I'm a chemist that knows how to grow cells and purify proteins.

Good for you. I recall being told that smoking cigarettes and eating sugars would be a benefit to me. And, I know from personal experience and discussions with several physicians that artificial sweetners are undeniably linked to several medical conditions and symptoms, such as enlarged prostates, gastric "reflux", and, likely, diabetes, possibly even Alzheimer.

Sure, I don't like artificial sweeteners either b/c they can perturb metabolism. But that has nothing to do with E. coli. (Side note: you do need a certain amount of sugar to open up your metabolism....now eating a ton would not be a good thing).

Your original post was concerned with E. Coli exposure....in that regard there is no concern in order to get the protein you have to kill the cell. This is also how bad rumors get started.

Perhaps, also, how mistakes in the production process can lead to adulterated products being shipped and later "recalled" when an outbreak of illness and deaths is traced to a particular factory, batch, or "computer error"? By the time the "errors" are detected it is too late to rethink whether of not is a good idea to deal in such processes for the sake of a profit. Our world today is filled with such questions, chemicals, products, and tears when the inevitable happens.

I understand your point, in this case it is not applicable. If they didn't kill the E. coli. then there would be no protein and the entire run would be scrapped b/c what they need is the protein. Also knowing how labs run, in industry these would be entirely separate departments (meaning the people who need the protein are not working in the same area as the people that are making the protein) or floors it would be difficult in this specific case to contaminate other things....not to mentioned added caution by the workers.

Hopefully, mistakes and human error never happens. The gas pedals never stick, the melons never get to market, there is never a disgruntled employee pouring some anthrax or the garbage can into the soup mixtures. Were this a perfect world there would be no "outbreaks" of illness born by chemicals into out food chain.

I'm not saying this is a perfect system, but this is something that mechanically cannot happen b/c the e. coli. is killed. Also....this is a bit more complicated, but not all e. coli. is the same. E. coli is what is called a plasmid (type of DNA) that contains the gene that encoded for the desired protein, there is a little more to it that that...but not much. So even if this e. coli. could live through the process (which it can't) then it would not harm you. Why? Because it would encode for phenylalanine synthase (or something around that title) which would make phenylalanine. That said, I don't even think it can do that much b/c it lacks the necessary compounds to make phenylalanine...so the protein wouldn't do anything.

The e. coli. itself is not harmful, it depends on the gene that is in the strain/cell culture of e. coli. E. coli is just an organism that rapidly makes proteins/enzymes.

I understand in my limited way your premise. But, these strains of e.coli seem to mutate or change from time to time, resulting in food born illness and "outbreaks" of illnesses we read about in the paper.
Not long ago I read of a recall of a couple of million pounds of ground beef from a factory or two. That's a lot of hamburger, apparently contaminated by e.coli or some such bacteria. It is difficult to imagine how such is contained and not a daily happening, given the volumes of foodstuff that is processed daily. Still, I think what is unnatural, such as chemical compounds, engineered foods, pink slime and meat glue, such adulterations of nature's kitchen, all should be eliminated from the food chain even if the profits of corporatism are lessened. I think it better to be healthy than wealthy.

As I eluded to at the end, E. coli. danger come from its rapid reproduction of cells. One indicator that it isn't from the industry, is that there has never been outbreak among people that work with e. coli.

As is more common than people think, this is from nature or bacteria mixing with e. coli. Nature makes some pretty nasty concoctions (way more complex than man can even dream of).

Generally, I don't mind engineered foods, etc. I do not like many artificial sweeteners, pink slime, and the like. I'm not huge on overly processed foods either. I don't really think it is the chemicals that are harmful, so much as people lacking essential nutrients, or having too much sugar....and the list goes on. My two cents. (I am sure there are some chemicals I cringe at when I see them added...the only one I have ever been concerned with was methyl iodide...and in this case I was concerned for the workers NOT the food b/c the chemical evaporates at room temp so it was an inhalation hazard that wouldn't ever get on the food itself.)

She never once said that it would be of benefit to you, just that the e coli used in the production of the aforementioned products were not harmful: not harmful, and, "good for you," are not synonymous.

Don't they also use E. coli to synthesize human insulin?

I think so, but I haven't looked it up. E. coli is a standard "machine" for scientists to make complex molecules...especially proteins. Chemical synthesis is much more difficult. Considering insulin is a hormone (type of protein), it would need to be a biosynthesis and E. coli. is the most common.

Thanks!:) I'm very fascinated by microbiology.. although I know you're talking more chemistry-

You're welcome. I'm always (for the most part) glad to talk science here to anyone that will listen. I'm a chemist at heart, but I prefer it to apply to biology, so I have a large amount of general knowledge on the subject...but I am sorely lacking in differentiation of cells etc.