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Article: Organic food link to E coli deaths
- Article from:
- The Scotsman
- Article date:
- August 18, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1999 The Scotsman. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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ORGANIC food is eight times more likely to contain potentially
deadly E coli bacteria than intensively cultivated produce, it has
been claimed.
According to research from the United States, organic crops carry
greater concentrations of the germ because manure -which can act as a
breeding ground for the pathogens - is used in their cultivation,
rather than synthetic fertilisers.
Statistics from the US government-run Centres for Disease Control
show that while organic food represents only 1 per cent of the total
food market in America, it accounted for 8 per cent of deaths from E
coli in the US in 1998 - suggesting that eating organic food is eight
times more likely to result in food poisoning.