Chipotle Research Paper

In this day and age, many Americans do not have enough time to have a home cooked meal. Many of them end up eating out at a restaurant or a fast food joint. Sadly, a beloved mainland food chain, Chipotle, has been recently serving food that has caused customers to become hospitalized. Unfortunately the cause is still unknown and the mysterious, contaminated food was infected with an Escherichia coliO26 (STEC O26) strain bacterium and this bacteria has the phenotype to excrete Shiga toxins ("Multistate Outbreak”) (Jube). Health officials determined the outbreak is due to one ingredient. It began at the beginning of November, the illness was only linked to eleven restaurants across Washington state and Oregon, but the illness has spread to four …show more content…
The youngest patient is 2 and the oldest is 94.”
(qtd. in Goldschmidt)
With this in mind, over 43 locations in Washington and Oregon had willing closed down their resturants in order to replace their food supply, test food ingredients and sanitize every location in order to keep their customer’s health in mind. With this precautionary step, they hope to prevent the spread of this infamous strain of E. Coli. Not only did the restaurants get a check up, but the whole chain was being scrubbed from farm to restaurant, so improvements can be made to make sure their food is as safe as possible (Goldschmidt). As for E. coli, it is normal to find the microbiota in humans and animals intestines and most forms of this bacteria is harmless. E. coli is pathogenic and the Shiga toxin producing E. coli is the the one that is the one commonly reported on the news that is linked to foodborne outbreaks. Anyone is susceptible to being infected by the bacterium, but children and elderly are most likely to develop serious symptoms ("General Information").
“Around 5–10% of those who are diagnosed with STEC infection develop a potentially life-threatening complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome

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