Portland, Maine - A Maine woman in her 90s has died of E. coli poisoning from eating tainted beef. The meat is believed to be from a contaminated batch of frozen ground beef sold at a Shaw's Supermarket chain store.
Shaw's had recalled thousands of pounds of the hamburger from 124 stores in New England on June 12 after an outbreak of E. coli bacteria made more than a dozen people sick.
So far two cases of food poisoning in Maine have been traced to the contaminated beef from Shaw's.
Two other cases, including that of the unidentified dead woman, are awaiting positive confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Officials today said the state's first-time use of genetic fingerprinting brought speedy identification of the source of the bacteria.
In addition, a new computer network linking public health officials in all 50 states helped to pinpoint the source.
Maine has reported 10 cases of E. coli this year, eight of them last month. In 1997 there were 19 cases.
Most outbreaks occur in the summer months when people eat outdoors with grilled hamburgers, the cookout favorite.
While E. coli rarely causes death, state epidemiologist Dr. Kathy Gensheimer says, “I treat every package of ground beef as potentially contaminated.”
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