THE E. COLI OUTBREAK IN GERMANY

JUNE 02 2011
With respect to BBC reports on E Coli and food hygiene...

There has been and still is little or no food hygiene in vast areas of human society on this planet, and if it made the slightest difference people would be dying like flies from E Coli and much other stuff. But I have to tell you it is a complete waste of time, as are most other ROUTINE applications of so-called hygiene. It actually causes trouble and in the long term, BIG trouble. [Of course foodstuff producers and restaurants should have hygiene standards, that is another matter - but see June 10th below]

On the London Underground these days we are bombarded with meaningless safety announcements. MIND THE GAP we are told, even when there is NO GAP. The resut will be that MIND THE GAP is eventually tuned out of warning/attention part of consciousness and if these actually IS a gap, more people will fall into it.

Unless there is reason to suspect a new, dangerous infection is likely, or the individual needs special protection at the time, it is not necessary to worry about what we call 'hygiene' other then in quite obvious ways. The entire life system on this planet, including humans, is designed/has evolved (take your pick) to function perfectly without the need for washing anything at all unless it takes our fancy, to please ourselves or others.

So, in the case of this new bacteria, some people in some places and/or buying certain produce can sensibly wash it, though we would save more lives if they didn't, probably, by finding the source quicker.

I realise the BBC journalists are not to know how ignorant the experts they call on are, because these experts do indeed know a huge amount. It is what they do NOT know that makes it all a bad joke. The same could be said on asking the Pope about Christianity or young Brian Cox on inertial mass and the fabric of space-time. The elephants in the rooms are invisible to them - often because they are standing on them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13626499

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemolytic-uremic_syndrome

THE BANNING OF IMPORTS OF VEGTABLES OR OTHER FOOD BY ANY COUNTRY IS CRAZY AND UNACCEPTABLE. IT COULD BRING ECONOMIC CHAOS ON A DANGEROUS SCALE, COMPARED TO WHICH THOUSANDS OF DEATHS FROM A DISEASE CAUSED BY THE BACTERIUM WOULD BE INSIGNIFICANT. IT IS UP TO INDIVIDUALS TO CHOOSE WHAT TO EAT AND WHETHER TO WASH AND COOK IT FIRST. IF WE WISH TO HOLD OTHER PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR SURVIVAL IN THIS WAY IT WILL END IN DISASTER FOR ALL. ONLY IN CASES OF DELIBERATE OR OBVIOUSLY NEGLIGENT POISONING SHOULD SUPPLIERS BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.

JUNE 6th 2011
German beansprouts?  A lotta questions now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13662431

Not beansprouts? http://uk.news.yahoo.com/german-organic-farm-behind-e-coli-outbreak-030817105.html

JUNE 7th 2011
Thanks to the expletives who panicked at the beginning of all this € 150 MILLION now has to be paid out, with all the administrative arguments and expense associated with such measures. More non-productive, energy wasting expenditure while produce is thrown away. The lesson has not been learned though. It seems to be too big to learn. The work on identifying the bacterium was brilliant. I am sure that progress in finding measures to take to limit its effects in those who become infected with it will be equally impressive.

22 people have died in this outbreak, though we don't know how much longer they would have lived without this infection. At 220 million dollars we are now paying an unproductive $10 million per death. The money spent on saving the 2,500 who did not die may have been well spent in comparison and would probably have been spent on health service costs anyway.

What needs to be understood is that living as we do now on the edge of time, at a rate of development and expansion that is unprecedented on the planet, augmented by technology and communications systems that change the holistic as well as the fundamental functions, there are no civilians in the global enterprise we are engaged in. We are all in the front line, exactly where we should be.

Shutting down European airspace when an Icelandic volcano erupts in case a single plane might crash is a way to magically protect some bureaucrat from blame - and the magic word? Death! Anything that involves DEATH on a scale that can be personalised in our crummy media trumps rationality, evaluation and judgement of any sort. It deals an absolute card in today's western society where people are told they should 'grieve' and need 'closure' and demand 'justice'.

There are all sorts of actions to be taken when either nature or humanity itself deals us a sudden blow, but our society reacts like a body without a brain, where uncontrollable local reactions are all that decide what happens. That should be all well and good. Action should be taken at the lowest possible level, at the coal face. But such is the nature of the high-speed interdependence of the modern globalised system that high-speed referral needs to be made to levels of wider consciousness and reflection and, thanks to the same properties, they can. If it is the case that we have reached such a level of specialisation that there are no individuals able to take a decsions that balances the priorities when these involve scientific, economic, political and philosophical issues, then I suggest a bit more forward planning is required on the WHAT IF basis.

Now of course there is a difficulty that emerges as soon as a civil service, under government instigation or on its own, sets up high level WHAT IF guidelines. It becomes immediately vulnerable. If the WHAT IF procedures fall into the wrong hands they can be played like a piano by terrorists or trouble-makers. It was probably when ruminating on such matters that Tony Blair, having promoted the Freedom of Information legislation for so long, wondered if he had made a mistake. Absolutes are no part of rational behaviour. We must use our open society to debate and discuss, then leave decisions to our elected and appointed leaders in the hope that the debate has been enlightening.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13683270

JUNE 8th 2011
E. coli cases still rising?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110608/ap_on_he_me/eu_contaminated_vegetables

JUNE 10th 2011
Well now! It seem there was no contamination found at the suspected bean-sprout farm but as soon as the sh*t hit the fan they cleaned the place from top to bottom!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13725953

It will be interesting to discover, over the coming days, weeks, months, years or decades if the mutated new E. coli strain was the consequence of inadequate or of excessive or irregular but ill judged hygiene procedures. Did a determination to kill all bacteria, even when harmless to our own species, cause the development of a strain that was lethal to us, as Nature moves to cut our determination to sterilise the entire planet down to a more modest level of ambition? There are too many of us, you know, for planetary health, given the way we live.

JULY 6th 2011
A month later - and the source is traced to Egypt. The seeds were supplied by a UK firm following a specific demand for them from France.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-14047089
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