There’s no doubt that E. coli merits the publicity: studies show that it lurks in about 3 percent of meat and poultry. Typically it is carried in animal feces, which contaminate the carcass during and after slaughter. But the presence of E. coli on, say, a filet or a steak does not alarm public-health officials. The bacteria remain on the surface of the meat, where they are eradicated during cooking–even the minimal cooking necessary for a rare steak. Hamburger is different. Grinding together contaminated cuts of beef mixes E. coli throughout the meat. “It’s as if hamburger is all surface by the time you’re through,” says Craig Hedberg, an E. coli specialist with the Minnesota Department of Health. Thorough cooking kills the bacteria-and “thorough” means no pink. “People shouldn’t be afraid to eat hamburger,” says Dr. Patricia Griffin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “If you’re served undercooked hamburger in a restaurant, send it back for more cooking.”
Most children and adults who get sick from E. coli will suffer cramps and bloody diarrhea but recover in about a week. Children under 4 who contract the infection, however, risk developing hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which may cause kidney failure. (The elderly and people with weak immune systems are also at risk.) HUS seems relatively uncommon–117 cases were identified during a 10-year period in Minnesota, of which four were fatal-but it’s also relatively untracked. Only two states, Washington and Minnesota, require doctors to report cases involving either E. coli or HUS. “If the outbreak had happened in many parts of America, it might have gone undetected,” says Michael Osterholm, Minnesota state epidemiologist. Researchers believe that HUS is on the rise, in part because the infection is so contagious. “The organism can persist in the stool for weeks,” says Griffin. “It can be a problem in day-care centers, if people don’t wash their hands.”
Does all this mean the end of the medium-rare hamburger? For little kids, it should-just the way car safety seats meant the end of jumping around in the back of the station wagon. Adults can judge the risks for themselves. But that nice, shiny, green stalk of broccoli is looking better every day.
