State Confirms 15 Cases Of E. Coli From Juice Odwalla Company Has Recalled Apple And Carrot Juices In Seven Western States

Seventeen cases of E. coli infection in Washington state have been confirmed and another 10 are suspected in an outbreak of bacterial illness linked to fresh juice drinks, public health officials said Friday.

Of the 17 people with confirmed cases, 15 had consumed unpasteurized Odwalla drinks containing apple juice, said Linda Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health.

Twelve of the 17 are children, none of them gravely ill, Kennedy said. Only a 2-year-old boy remained hospitalized in Seattle. He was in satisfactory condition Friday at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, spokesman Dean Forbes said.

“We do expect to see more cases because of the heightened awareness,” said Linda Waring, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.

“We have asked medical providers to report any cases right away. If a person has the symptoms, they would go to a doctor. He or she would order lab tests.

“If the lab test was positive, the culture would go to the state lab and become a suspected case.”

Half Moon Bay-based Odwalla company launched the recall in seven Western states and Canada after a spurt of E. coli cases in Washington state apparently linked to its unpasteurized apple juice. Carrot juice products were recalled because they used the same assembly line at the company’s Visalia, Calif., plant.

“As near as we can tell, the recall is complete,” said Scott Lewis of the California Department of Health Services. “The only product left out there is most likely in consumers’ homes.”

Odwalla officials said they have as yet failed to find any E. coli in their juice products, but continue examining them. The company has offered to pay medical expenses for anyone made ill by Odwalla juices.

Lewis said inspectors were going over every inch of the line Friday and a joint federal-state laboratory in Los Angeles was attempting to culture E. coli from juice samples. That could take from 48 hours to a week, he said.

There have been scattered reports of E. coli infection around the West.

Odwalla products containing apple juice have been withdrawn from stores in Washington, California, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Nevada, Texas and British Columbia.

The strain of E. coli involved - O157:H7 - killed three children and sickened hundreds in Western Washington in early 1993 during an outbreak traced to contaminated and undercooked hamburgers at Jack-in-the-Box outlets.

The bacterium can be eliminated by thorough cooking or pasteurization, in which a product is briefly heated then rapidly cooled.