this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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The outbreak linked to romaine lettuce killed one person and sickened at least 88 more, including a 9-year-old boy who nearly died of kidney failure.

An E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce ripped across 15 states in November, sickening dozens of people, including a 9-year-old boy in Indiana who nearly died of kidney failure and a 57-year-old Missouri woman who fell ill after attending a funeral lunch. One person died.

But chances are you haven’t heard about it.  

The Food and Drug Administration indicated in February that it had closed the investigation without publicly detailing what had happened — or which companies were responsible for growing and processing the contaminated lettuce.

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[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 60 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Government agencies literally doing nothing resembling their description for the people. I grew up in the cold war, and these were among the sorts of stories we heard about the Soviet Union.

We are nothing more than another natural resource to these people,and as long as enough of the herd is healthy, that's good enough for them.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 3 weeks ago

This is exactly it. We are running more and more like what we complained the soviets did in the 80's.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 23 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Disgusting. I’d rather pay extra for imports at this point if possible. I just don’t trust American products.

[–] protist@mander.xyz 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That makes no difference, this could've happened with an imported product for all you know

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You mean from a country with strong and monitored food safety processes?

I suppose it could be tampered with such that no one would ever notice even with the proper handling. Maybe by evil alien robots. No one would know!

[–] protist@mander.xyz 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

E. coli outbreaks also occur in Europe, unfortunately

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] protist@mander.xyz 2 points 3 weeks ago

No, but they're not investigating outbreaks of imported food in the US either. The point is an outbreak in the US could have come from anywhere because we know nothing about it

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev -3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Or just don't eat lettuce at all. It's mostly water anyway.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev -2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Thanks professor. I knew I was wise to come onto the Internet for nutritional or medical advice.

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Wow, mocking isn't cool on Lemmy; we are trying to get away from Reddit, not become the next one, right? I have insulted no one here and am certainly no professor in the room. These guys are, though: Heavy metal contamination in vegetables and associated health risks

This article is from March 2025, so it's not outdated by any means. Lettuce is a hyperaccumulator of heavy metals and food from the surface is increasingly becoming toxic to eat if it isn't naturally self-protective (like avocados, mushrooms, onions).

[–] LemmyPlay@lemmings.world 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Thanks for this. I never thought vegetables could have heavy metals like that. This is actually wild to learn, and it makes me think twice about buying it in the future.

[–] whalebiologist@lemmy.world -3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

bro get the fuck over yourself.

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

What exactly does that mean, though; just ignore research? I do believe that it's worth sounding the alarm about changing our eating habits, even if it sucks.

Now I'm seeing that we may have to abandon rice altogether (which sucks because I live off the stuff): Global warming will make rice toxic due to more arsenic accumulation

It would be nice to be able to ignore new, scary research, but being prepared lets us more gradually make uncomfortable switches. Even this just dropped, so hopefully we'll be able to figure something out here: Toothpaste widely contaminated with lead and other metals, US research finds (April 17: just yesterday)

[–] phlegmy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Ugh, stop being so fucking helpful.
All this "sharing of informative research which could benefit the health and lives of everyone here" is pissing me off.
Who do you think you are? Some kind of caring person who isn't stooping down to our level?

Let me die of arsenic poisoning you prick.

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago

Don't get me wrong; I merely need teammates with whom to survive the coming apocalypse!

[–] temporal_spider@lemm.ee 4 points 3 weeks ago

I had some bad food experiences that led me to growing microgreens at home rather than trust store bought lettuce. It turns out to be extremely simple and cost-effective to do, plus, you can have a lot more variety. Check out a guy called Mike Van Duzee on YouTube. He has so many great ideas for growing using whatever you have, instead of spending money.

[–] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

My mom was sick for a month and a half because of E.coli last year. It was difficult to treat. It’s the sort of thing that definitely should get any food producer SEVERE consequences. Like manslaughter charges at the very least. You need to be very, very careful in food safety or you could very well end up killing someone.

I understand from the article that they can’t pin down which producer it was. But in cases where that’s obvious, there need to be severe punishments.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

Kid needs to pull himself up by the bootstraps