Scientists Look to Vaccines in the War on E. Coli

Shousun C. Szu, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health, says the best way to prevent people from being poisoned by deadly E. coli would be to vaccinate all infants against the bacteria.

Graeme McRae, a Canadian biotechnology executive, says it would be more practical to inoculate cows instead.

Vaccines for people and for cattle are just two approaches under development to prevent or treat food poisoning by the strain E. coli O157:H7. ...

E. coli O157:H7 causes 75,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths in the United States each year, according to a 1999 estimate by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted on its Web site. The actual number of confirmed cases has dropped since then, particularly in 2003 and 2004, but increased in 2005 and 2006, in part because of the outbreaks tied to spinach and lettuce.

As few as 10 bacteria can make someone ill. The bacteria release one or two potent toxins that cause bloody diarrhea. In 15 percent of children younger than 10, and more rarely for adults, the infection causes hemolytic uremic syndrome, in which red blood cells are destroyed and the kidneys fail. In a small percentage of such cases, the syndrome proves fatal.

Dr. Phillip I. Tarr, an expert at Washington University in St. Louis, says treatment is difficult because the bloody diarrhea that signals infection may not occur until three to four days after ingestion of the bacteria. By then, a patient could be well on the way to kidney failure.

Antibiotics, the usual treatment for bacterial infection, only make things worse by killing the bacteria and releasing more of their toxin, Dr. Tarr said. He added that the sole treatment shown to reduce the severity of kidney problems was intravenous fluids. ...

•	Scientists Look to Vaccines in the War on E. Coli The New York Times, Tuesday, May 1, 2007 Byline: Andrew Pollack

	Story also ran in 1 others:  Tuscaloosa News (AL)