E.Coli outbreaks rising in the last years.

Saturday the New York Times released an investigative piece on the rise in outbreaks of the E.Coli virus, uncovering lapses in the safety and testing of the ground beef industry.

The story focused specifically on 22-year-old Stephanie Smith, a native of Cold Spring, Minn. who was stricken by the E.Coli two years ago after eating a hamburger distributed by Cargill and cooked by her mother. She was left paralyzed from the waist down and suffered brain damage after several seizures and nine weeks in a medically induced coma.

Once a children's dance instructor, doctors don't expect her to walk again.

The times used Smith's story to couch a further investigation of the meat industry's E.Coli testing and practices. Though Cargill refused to answer questions and released a statement concerning their desire for safe food, the paper was able to interview Costco representatives who explained the extensive testing procedures Costco ensures for their ground beef.

The trouble, reported the Times, is that ground beef is not one cut of meat, it is a combination of many kinds of meat ground together. Because the meat is combined, it is easier to infect large quantities of meat with meat that carries even small amounts of the bacteria. Confidential records from Cargill reported that though Smith's burger was toted as 100% Angus beef, its actual contents came from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

The company also keeps its processes and ingredients very secretly.

In concurrence with the Times piece, the United Press International released a piece Sunday discussing a boost in the bacteria's activity. According to professors at the University of Illinois, they have reached a better way to study the bacteria and its affects using lasers and optical traps to track the way the bacteria behaves.

Because these laser can confine specific cells to track, it is then easier to introduce specific stimuli and track the way in which the cell responds.

Though most outbreaks of E. Coli are not as severe as Smith's, thousands of individuals are stricken with the affects of the bacteria each year through food borne illness.