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Personal Injury and Wrongful Death
What is E coli O157:H7 Poisoning and
How Do I Protect My Legal Rights?
Our attorneys hold companies accountable for
E. coli O157:H7 Poisoning.
Among the many strains of E coli bacteria, O157:H7 is the one that is responsible for the majority of E. coli outbreaks in the United States.1 E coli O157:H7 originates from the intestines of cattle and other animals, including deer, goats and llamas.2 The animals that harbor E coli O157:H7 shed the bacteria in their manure. Every E. coli O157:H7 outbreak is caused by manure contaminating food or water.
What makes E. coli O157:H7 so dangerous is the Shiga toxin that it produces. The Shiga toxin create ulcers in the colon that can bleed (E. coli colitis), producing the bloody diarrhea that patients often experience when they have E. coli O157:H7 infections. When Shiga toxin spreads throughout the body it can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), related diseases that can lead to any of the following:
- Hemolytic anemia and associated blood complications
- Abnormal kidney function
- Kidney failure (renal failure) that may require a kidney transplant (renal transplant) - illness accompanying kidney failure is called uremia (develops when urea and other waste products are retained in the blood)
- Gall stones - probably caused by rapid hemolysis, breaking open of red blood cells and the release of hemoglobin
- Elevated pancreatic enzyme levels that could lead to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and or pancreatitis
- Central Nervous System (CNS) disturbances such as irritablilty, behavior changes, disorientation, delerium, hallucinations, dizziness, tremors and several other serious complications listed below
- Seizures
- Coma
- Stroke
- Encephalopathy
- Respiratory disease syndrome
- Convulsions
- Heart problems, including myocardial infarction, cardio myopathy, cardiogenic shock, congestive heart failure
- Cortical blindness, caused by damage to the visual area in the brain's occipital cortex
- Thrombocytopenia (platelet deficiency in the blood)
- Death
To determine if you or a loved one has E. coli O157:H7 poisoning, the following steps need to be taken:
- A medical professional needs to get a stool sample, preferrably withing 6 days after onset of diarrhea, but it can be more. There have been cases where a rectal swab done after E. coli symptoms have ended has tested positive for E. coli O157:H7. In cases where a child is suffering from kidney failure (renal failure), a rectal swab should always be done to determine if E. coli is present. Most cases of kidney failure in children are caused by hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) that has developed from an E. coli infection.
- The stool sample should be screened for E. coli O157:H7. This is usually done using media containing sorbitol, since E. coli O157:H7 does not ferment sorbitol rapidly.
- E. coli isolates that do not ferment sorbitol within 24 hours should be sent to an appropriate reference laboratory for serotyping. (Note: Since E. coli other than serotype O157:H7 have also been associated with illness, including HUS, and these E. coli may ferment sorbitol, a thorough investigation requires screening of all stool specimens by a reference laboratory.)
- Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) should be done on the DNA of the E. coli O157 to find the DNA "fingerprinting"of the bacterium that made the person sick. The source of the E. coli infection (generally food or water) will have the same genetic fingerprint.
These steps need to be taken to protect your legal rights. The companies responsible for making you or your loved one sick need to be held accountable.
Pritzker Olsen law firm is one of the leading E. coli litigation law firms in the United States. Our lawyers have appeared on national and local news programs discussing food safety and litigation against food manufacturers, restaurants and others. In two of our recent cases, the firm represented the families of women who died from TTP-HUS. (See information on CBS affiliate interview of Fred Pritzker on E. coli and the wrongful death of a victim of the E. coli outbreak linked to spinach.) To contact the firm, please call toll-free at 1-888-377-8900 or submit the firm's online consultation form.
References:
1. Frenzen PD, Drake A, Angulo FJ, et al. Economic cost of illness due to Escherichia coli O157 infections in the United States. J Food Prot 2005;68(12):2623-30 [Abstract]
2. Cole D, Drum DJ, Stallknecht DE, et al. Free-living Canada geese and antimicrobial resistance. Emerg Infect Dis 2005;11(6):935-8 [Full text]
Keywords: E coli O157:H7, lawyer, attorney, lawsuit, ecoli 0157 H7.
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