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Fellow World Health Organization

 The latest recall of E. coli infected beef should not only be a concern for beef and beef products but also other meats, cheeses, vegetables and water.

 E. coli is a generic name for billions of such bacteria thriving in the alimentary canal of humans and animals. Their presence in food or water indicates fecal contamination.

 The consumption of any such food or water can cause deadly disease. It cannot become safe by cooking or irradiation. Irradiation of the end products, such as steaks, hamburger, etc., may kill microbes but it does not exclude their original source which is feces and urine. Irradiation of meat may also generate carcinogenic substances. All such food and water must be rejected.

What Promotes E.Coli Infection?

 Virtually every E. coli infection traces to unsanitary conditions in which food-producing crops and animals are being cultivated, processed, transported, stored, and ultimately sold for human consumption.

 Most food-producing animals these days are raised at mega farms, commonly called factory farms. From there, they get transported for thousands of miles to similarly large slaughterhouses without being fed or watered for as long as 48 hours.

 Covered in feces and urine, dehydrated, frozen and badly bruised, approximately 50 percent of them are reported to arrive there already dead. Moreover, the mechanized tools and procedures used to slaughter these animals convey their infection-loaded excreta into the eventual meat and meat products for human consumption.

 Finally, the waste water from these mega farms, slaughterhouses, packing plants and other establishments gets drained into fields, rivers, lakes and wells. Reports indicate that every year approximately 36 million Americans and 11 million Canadians contract food-borne infections, out of which many thousand get hospitalized and several thousand die.