The administration of President Donald Trump told the public nothing of a hazardous E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened nearly 100 more — including one Indiana boy who became severely ill.
The bacteria, commonly found in feces, damaged 9-year-old Colton George’s kidneys and put him on dialysis. It was also “a genetic match to the strain that killed one person and sickened nearly 90 people in 15 states last fall,” reports the Washington Post. “Federal health agencies investigated the cases and linked them to a farm that grew romaine lettuce.”
However, the paper reports most people have never heard of this outbreak, which experts say is runs counter to federal health practices.
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“There were no public communications related to this outbreak,” says a heavily redacted February internal Food and Drug Administration memo that witholds the name of farm that served as the source of the outbreak. The federal government refused to name the business “because there was no product remaining in commerce” at the time of the report.
“Victims have a right to know who made them sick. This is my kid. He’s my life," said George's father, Chris George.
The Washington Post reports Trump officials have still never issued public communications after the investigation or identified the grower. The public might not know of the outbreak today had George’s parents not filed a lawsuit against the lettuce grower in April in federal court for the Southern District of Indiana.
In addition to failing to publicize a major outbreak and scaling back safety alert specialists and rules, the Trump administration’s has also withdrawn a proposed Biden-era regulation to reduce the presence of salmonella in raw poultry. That regulation, estimates the Food Safety and Inspection Service, could have prevented up to almost $30 million worth of illness in roughly 3,000 victims from chicken and turkey products
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In addition, the Washington Post reports the administration is “disbanding a Justice Department unit that pursues civil and criminal actions against companies that sell contaminated food and is reassigning its attorneys.”
Staffing cuts at the FDA and CDC will mean further delays in publicizing deadly outbreaks, said former FDA worker Susan Mayne, an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health.
“Consumers are being notified with delays about important food safety notifications,” she said, referring to a recent outbreak in cucumbers. “People can die if there are pathogens like listeria, which can have a 30 percent fatality rate.”
Read the full Washington Post report here.