A question of product liability

摘要

Dangerous bacteria shed in the faeces of dairy and beef cattle (cows, sheep, goats) contaminated cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes, infecting more than 1,000 people in Germany with a perilous diar-rhoeal disease from which several people have died. Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) is a rare and very dangerous strain of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli. Lab tests showed that the bacteria currently raging in Germany is the very rare E. coli O104 strain.The bacteria are transmitted by contact with manure, via contaminated food products or from human to human. Meanwhile cases have been reported in several countries including Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Denmark and the US.