e coli

Think of every major outbreak of foodborne illness in the past 23 years and Seattle attorney Bill Marler was involved, representing victims who were hospitalized or, in several tragic cases, died from eating tainted food.

Some advice for the next time you fly: Bring plenty of hand sanitizer, and don't touch the seat-back pocket - where, new research shows, disease-causing germs can live for more than a week.

Las opiniones de los expertos en materia de higiene y salud pública siguen encontradas en cuanto a la efectividad del uso de jabones antibacterianos para garantizar la salubridad general y prevenir la transmisión de virus, gérmenes y bacterias, sobre todo en la cocina durante la preparación de alimentos.

A Consumer Reports lab analysis of ground-turkey products purchased nationwide found that 90 percent had potentially disease-causing bacteria, some of which were antibiotic-resistant.

Which of your kitchen appliances or utensils has the most germs?

Taylor Farms has announced it is voluntarily recalling its organic baby spinach products in 39 states because of possible E. coli contamination. The company says it took the action "out of an abundance of caution."

So here's a brilliant idea: If you want to keep fresh fruits and vegetables from becoming contaminated and making people sick, how about making sure that workers wash their hands, crops are irrigated with unpolluted water, processing equipment stays clean and animals are kept away from crops? Sounds simple, but it's taken years for the government, consumers and the food industry to agree on how to enforce these things.

So tiny, yet so deadly. That's the verdict on raw sprouts - from the mung bean sprouts used in Chinese stir-fry dishes to the threadlike alfalfa or clover sprouts often added to sandwiches -which have caused dozens of food poisoning outbreaks in the past two decades.

Holiday baking is in full force, but don't be tempted to nibble on that raw cookie dough. Especially you, ladies.

The devastating outbreak of E. coli poisoning in Germany - now traced to bean sprouts - is particularly frightening because the deadly new strain is extremely hard to treat.