The amazing and interesting things about E. Coli 0157 H7

Microbes are all over the human body. Some of them on our skin while others are inside of our body. About the majority of the microbes are inside of our guts. These microbes help us with digestion as well as making us who we are and what we are capable of. In the article “Some of My Best Friends Are Germs”, Pollan talks about how microbes play a critical part in our body since the day we are born. When we are infants, the milk that we drink from our mother contains a complex carbohydrate called Oligosacharides. This helps the baby to increase his digestion of food. It is also said that there are many more microbes contained in the human breast milk that help increase the immune system of the baby. The bacteria in our guts not only keep our immune system better, they also improves our metabolic system. The bacteria in our gut are also responsible for creating enzymes and vitamins that help keep us in check. Some even monitor our temperature and stress level. In this research paper, I will be looking at E. Coli 0157 H7 and how some of its outbreaks tell about ourselves as well as how they impact out medical and social environment.

One of the most important and well know microbes in our gut is Escherichia Coli which is short for E. Coli. This is well known for its bad and its good behaviors. The pathogenic form of E. Coli is beneficial to our body. One of the benefit is that this microbes is able to help improve our immune systems. One can say that Microbes in our body are like the co-dependent relationship between ant colony and its host, a tree. Like the way how the tree provides an environment for the ants to live on in exchange for protection against other insects, Escherichia Coli acts the same. It helps with attacking the any bacteria by producing antibodies. It also attach itself to the intestinal walls and makes it more acidic to prevent any growth of bacteria.

Even when we are a baby, E. Coli helps us prevent many diseases and helps smooth out intestine. It helps with the breakdown of the food and processes the food faster. However, one scary thing about bacteria is that they multiply quickly and with fast growth comes with more chances of a mutation. One of the most dangerous strains E. Coli is the E. Coli 0157. E Coli 0157 is responsible for kidney failure. The creation of this bacteria is quite a feat. In society today, we are able to genetic engineer bacteria that give us benefits such as genetic an E. Coli that produce vitamin. However, even though we are able to program bacteria to do many things, bacteria themselves are the true master. E. Coli 0157 comes from a virus that have genetic engineer itself to include a poison from the bacteria call Shigella. The virus invade the Shegella cell and chop off the part of the chromosome that contain the instruction to produce the toxin. It then integrated that part and injected its DNA into a harmless E. Coli and thus creates E. Coli 0158.

The effect of E. Coli 0157 can be best seen by looking back to 1996’s outbreak of E. Coli in Wishaw. The short documentary film, Wishaw shows that in the Scottish community of Wishaw, the first person feel ill of E. Coli 0157 happen after a dinner at the church. After a few days, more people fell ill to this bacteria. The medical institute examines the patients’ blood samples and find what they thought to an already contained bacteria. One of the scariest reason for this outbreak is the fact that is it very easy to be transfer from one person to another. The event of this outbreak is immediately reported to the regional public health. Due to the fact that is very contagious, the director of the regional public health immediately goes on to find the cause of this outbreak.

In the local hospitals, the doctors and the nurses go quickly to take down details of where the patient have been or have eaten before they were sick. Soon, the director sees one connection. There are several people who have brought the meat from a meat shop called John Barrs. He immediately sets out to contain the infected meats. The first action is to go to the place and asks Barr to stop selling the meat. They meet at Barr’s house and inform him about the situation of his meat and ask him not to sell cooked meat. Barr complies with the agreement to stop selling cooked meat but since his business expends to other area such as pie and bread, Barr is able to sell those even though some of them contain cooked meat. Even with the stop of selling cooked meat, more people feel ill. After 11 more people feel ill, the health officials finally ask Barr to stop selling any products that have a risk of cross contamination.

One of the major social problem that arises from this outbreak is the fact that if the officials are to shut down Barr on the day that told him about the contamination, the 24 infections after that day will be saved. Another beneficial action that the health committee can do is to release the shops that Barr supply his meat for. The release of the shops that it supply can be a key factor in containing the bacteria. The main reason why this spread so fast is the fact that Barr supplies to many places and those places also supplies to others. After the 5th day of the outbreak, the committee finally release the list of 56 shops that Barr has supplied. The reason for not publishing the list is that the health committee is forbidden by law to publish any list that is not complete and also due to the fact that Barr runs a huge operation in supplying products (“Wishaw”).

The outbreak of E. Coli is a wake-up call that bacteria evolves as well. Studies have shown that bacteria have evolve, either through mutation or generic engineering, all the time and are human and their advancement in medicine able to catch up to the pace of the bacteria’s evolution? There are social changes that resulted in the outbreak and the most noticeable the change or improvement in our health care system. Another alarming factor of this outbreak is the fact that bacteria are able to evolve into such a destructive force. In the article, “Size doesn’t matter: towards a more inclusive philosophy of biology”, O’ Malley and Dupre’s view on bacteria evolution bring light to the existence of E. Coli 0157. In this article, they mention that bacteria that are living in a large group of communities are able to evolve at a faster rate than those that are not in the community. When looking in the gut of the human body, E Coli is one of the most abundance microbes there. This large communities of E. Coli allows them to evolve at a faster rate than other microbes in our body. In the article, they also mention the exchange of useful genes between microbes in a communities. In a communities of microbes, it is important to absorb useful information out of one another and they do this by incorporating genes that help them thrive. This is an alarming factor for the health department because of the rate of evolution of the bacteria. The trillions of bacteria that are in our guts are able to have mutations and out of the trillions of mutations, the useful traits are passed on. This is extremely terrifying in term of harmful microbes and raise the question, is the society able to keep up with the evolution of the microbes?

The evolution of medicine and the health system improves dramatically from the 1980s, when the first E. Coli 0157 outbreak occurs, to modern era. As shown in the short documentary, Wishaw, there are many flaws that are being shown. The first flaw is the fact that there is no prevention or any measure taken to ensure that the meats from the cows are free of E. Coli 0157. Another flaw is the fact that the health committee only prohibits the sale of cooked meat and not the products that have the cooked meats. This, as shown in the video, causes additional 11 more cases before the health committee prevents the sale of any products that have cooked meats. These flaws have been addressed in the modern day through new policies as well as advancement in medicine and vaccine.

When looking at ways to prevent E Coli 0157 H7 from further spreading into our food source, I come across the fact that ordinary people are not the reason for such a disaster. The main source is the big corporations. One of the place that we see E coli 0157 H7 appears the most is in the meat. In fact the meat is the most popular hiding place of E. Coli but other such as lettuce and leafy greens also contains E Coli. In the film Food Inc, it shows how the cows are being fed with corns instead of grasses. One reason that they choose to do this is because it is cheaper and it makes the cows get fatter faster. When the cows are fed with the corn base food, they do not have the appropriate diet to fight off pathogens. When comparing with the cows that ate grass to the cows that eat corn, the cows that eats grass have 80% more chances of fighting off E. Coli 0157 H7. Another problem that is shown in the movie is that there are fewer and fewer corporations that control the meat industries. During the times when there are thousands of slaughterhouses, the chances of the meat getting contaminated is very slim since each slaughterhouse only can process few hundred cows. Now a days, there are only 17 major corporations that are responsible for supplying the country with meats. This mean that if there is a case of infection or disease outbreak in that slaughterhouse, the problem becomes a major problem due to the massive number of cows that the slaughterhouse is responsible.

This movie also opens my eyes to how one misstep is able to lead to nationwide catastrophe. In the movie, it is shows that a company such as Tyson is able to control the chicken industry due to patenting their generic engineering chicken to be double the size in half the time. This allows them to sell the chicken to the farmer and the farmer will keep relying on them. It is also said in the documentary that if the processing factories are able to finds anything wrong with the food, they do not change the system but come up with some fixes that allows the system to be kept in place. With those kind of power and reach from the companies, it is clear that an outbreak from one of its manufacture plant is going to cause a nationwide outbreak.

However, there are some company that does implements new systems that allows the meat to be E Coli free. One of the company that is mention in the movie is Beef Products Inc. This company is in charge of producing quality beef. One way that they make sure that their beef does not have E Coli is by running the meat under Ammonia. Ammonia is able to kill bacteria and is just one of the ways that they make sure that their beef does not contain E. Coli.

One interesting outbreak of E. Coli is through plants. Even though the majority of the outbreaks involve meat, there are rare occasions that there is an outbreak in plants. In July 1995, there is an outbreak in Montana where there are 52 people infected with E Coli that is in the leaf lettuce (“The Journal of Infectious Diseases”). Another strange one happens in Missouri where there are 243 cases of E Coli. However the scary thing is that this contamination comes from the water source. This is a rather scary since water is one of the most common source and one where people most likely to get infected. This outbreak is consider the largest outbreak of E coli 0157. Unlike the beef outbreak, this outbreak is able to be under control by System-wide chlorination and hyper chlorination during repairs of the water system. This will reduce the spread of E. Coli in cities that have weak water systems (Swerdlow, D, “A Waterborne Outbreak in Missouri”).

I want to come back to the outbreak from the lettuce. There are two solutions that we can do to help prevent this outbreak. The first thing is to test and process each lettuce thoroughly before putting up on the market. This is a more time consuming way. An easier approach is to create a lettuce seed that has the genes to fight off E. Coli 0157. When watching the documentary on Food Inc. it shows that Monsanto controls the soil bean seed since it is patented by them. Since the fact that lettuce is able to have E. Coli 0157, I am not surprise if the bacteria is able to evolve to be in other plants. As shown in the films, most big corporations do not like to retract their products even though they know that there may be a problem in their crops. One way that the corporations can do is to include a part of the genes that are able to be immune to E. Coli. There are many other ways that scientist are trying to do to prevent E. coli 0157 outbreak.

Another way is through the use of bacteria. The lactic acid bacteria is able to help reduce foodborne pathogen that are present in the bacteria when storing it in the freezer. One place that contamination is likely to happen is in the refrigerator. Since there are all kind of food store in one place, there is a high level of chances that a cross contamination will occur if one of the food has the bacteria. With this lactic acid bacteria, it is able to prevent any cross contamination from happening in the refrigerator (L, S., “Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7”).

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has revises steps to ensure that the containment of an E. coli outbreak. One of the changes is that they make sure that there are no cross contamination in the food. This is carried out by prohibiting any selling of items that may have E. Coli 0157 as well as making sure that equipment are cleaned carefully before being used again. The scientists on the other hand have developed a vaccine for the cattle to prevent any development of E. coli 0157 and is approved by the FDA in 2009. However, the recent outbreak of E. Coli 0145 is identified as a variation of the E. Coli 0157 in 2001 (Davis, C, “E. coli: Get the Facts on the Infection and Treatment”)This makes us think that whether or not we can truly prevent E. Coli 0157 when they are constantly changing themselves to adopt to our advancement in medicine. The bacteria is the master of genetic engineering and the endless war against E. Coli still continues.

References
Brooks, J. (2005, May 18). The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/192/8/1422.short
Food, Inc [Motion picture]. (2009). Magnolia Home Entertainment.
L, S. (2005, August 1). Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella in Ground Beef Using Lactic Acid Bacteria and the Impact on Sensory Properties. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2005/00000068/00000008/art00005
Swerdlow, D. (1992, November 15). A Waterborne Outbreak in Missouri of Escherichia coli O157:H7 Associated with Bloody Diarrhea and Death. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=705948
The Journal of Infectious Diseases. (1997, December 22). Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/177/6/1588.short
Davis, C. (2014, April 25). E. coli: Get the Facts on the Infection and Treatment. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.medicinenet.com/e_coli__0157h7/article.htm
O’Malley, M., & Dupré, J. (2007). Size doesn’t matter: Towards a more inclusive philosophy of biology. Biology & Philosophy Biol Philos, 155-191.
POLLAN, M. (2013, May 15). Some of My Best Friends Are Germs By MICHAEL POLLAN. New York Times. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
E. Coli | GIDEON - Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network. (2013, June 27). Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.gideononline.com/tag/e-coli/