Health officials confirm e-coli bacteria is what recently sickened more than 50 people in Iowa and nearly 30 in Minnesota. Black Hawk County Health Department director Tom O’Rourke says tests have also shown the cases in the two states are most certainly related.
O’Rourke says testing in both states confirms the e-coli outbreaks are genetically identical and are related. The same tests show the Cedar Falls outbreak is not releated to any other outbreaks that are happening anywhere else in the U.S. He says the tests point to lettuce as the culprit.
He says interviews with victims of the outbreaks in both states confirm they all had eaten products that contained lettuce and all had eaten at Taco John’s restaurants. On Wednesday, Taco John’s International in Cheyenne, Wyoming, dropped the Minnesota produce supplier that both the Iowa and Minnesota facilities had been using.