A 17-year-old girl from Paducah, Kentucky, is among dozens sickened by an E. coli outbreak in several states and is being treated at a Tennessee hospital.
The teen, who couldn’t be identified because of privacy concerns, is a vegetarian who had eaten spinach recently, said Jerry Jones, a spokesman for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. She has suffered kidney complications from the infection due to hemolytic uremic syndrome.
Kentucky is the 10th state to report a case of E. coli, linked by Food and Drug Administration officials to bagged spinach. One death occurred in Wisconsin.
All spinach, even bagged salads containing the green, was pulled from the shelves Friday morning at the Food Giant grocery store in Paducah. It did not apply to any specific brand.
There is speculation that because the outbreak is so widespread, it likely was caused by bacteria in the irrigation systems in spinach crops or during the washing process.