Today, Hawaiian health officials announced that an E. coli outbreak in March has been traced to lettuce grown on Kaua’i.
All eight people were most likely infected by eating contaminated lettuce from a Kaua’i farm, where heavy rains and flooding had carried E. coli bacteria from a cattle pasture onto the lettuce patch.
Officials declined to name the farm they suspect was the source of the lettuce.
The state Department of Health said that the eight victims, including the four who required hospital care, have recovered without complications from the outbreak of a strain of E. coli O157, whose symptoms include abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea and which in severe cases can cause kidney failure.