Germany confirms German bean sprouts the cause of E. coli outbreak

A little bit of science would have gone a long way earlier in this process. German government ministers were much too hasty when they blamed the problem on Spanish produce and it has severely damaged their business. Raw veggies have been piling up in the stores in France as well but hopefully this should help everyone.

Next time Germany should wait and see the results before dishing out blame.

Investigators have determined that German-grown vegetable sprouts are the cause of the E. coli outbreak that has killed 29 people and sickened nearly 3,000, the head of Germany's national disease control center said Friday.

Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, said even though no tests of the sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive for the E. coli strain behind the outbreak, an investigation into the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion.

"In this way, it was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts," Burger said at a press conference with the heads of Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and Federal Office for Consumer Protection. "It is the sprouts."