Source Of E. Coli In Juice Remains A Mystery Tests At California Plant Come Up Clean; Lawyers Begin Filing Suits Against Odwalla

Despite a thorough investigation, health inspectors have found no traces of E. coli bacteria at an Odwalla Inc., juice plant in Central California.

Food and Drug Administration officials said they took laboratory swabs of everything from plant equipment to floor drains from the company’s plant in Dinuba, Calif., 190 miles southeast of San Francisco. But none of the samples tested at the FDA lab in Seattle showed the bacteria blamed for the E. coli outbreak.

“We diligently looked for the organism in the plant and didn’t find it,” said Joe Baca, compliance director for the FDA’s Seattle office.

The California Department of Health said it would check apple growers in the San Joaquin Valley to see if the contamination could have come from irrigation or fertilizer. Investigators also will try to determine whether any windfall apples were picked off the ground or if there is possible contamination in trucks or packing houses.

The outbreak linked to the unpasteurized juice is blamed for the death of a child Friday in Denver; as many as 70 others were sickened in Washington state, California, Colorado and British Columbia.

An injury and punitive damage suit against Odwalla and Starbucks Inc., where the drink was purchased, was filed Thursday in King County Superior Court on behalf of U-seoung “Noel” Kim, 6, of Seattle.

The boy was hospitalized and underwent abdominal surgery after he became sick from drinking apple juice Oct. 17 while on vacation with his mother, Hyereoung Kim, in the Los Angeles area.

Officials from both companies refused to comment on the suit.

On Monday, a lawyer, Roderick Bushnell, sued Odwalla in San Francisco Superior Court not as an E. coli victim but as a representative of the public under a California law allowing so-called “private attorney general” suits.

He accused Odwalla of conspiring to mislead consumers about product safety and of failing to maintain adequate quality controls, cleaning or testing processes. Among other things, the suit seeks an order appointing a consumer representative to take part in a review of Odwalla’s quality control and marketing.

Kim’s lawsuit claims Odwalla should have known that using unpasteurized apple juice posed a risk for E. coli contamination.

Food and Drug Administration investigators continue to investigate how the bacteria, believed to originate in the gut and feces of cows, got into the bottled juices.

The company Thursday announced that three of the mixed drinks that had been pulled - Strawberry “C” Monster, Serious Ginseng and Mo’Beta - had been reformulated without apple juice and would be back on the market Friday.

Kim’s suit was filed two days after Odwalla’s co-founder and chairman, Greg Steltenpohl, went to Seattle to visit the family of another youngster hospitalized with E. coli infection and to reiterate that the company has offered to pay the medical bills of all those sickened in the outbreak.

“It sounded like he was making a nice first-step offering to pay the bills, but I did not hear anything about the pain and suffering of these people and nothing about wage losses and I did not hear anything about past conduct,” said Kelly Corr, a lawyer for the Kim family.

Odwalla and Starbucks, based in Seattle, sold unpasteurized apple juice despite reports in recent years about E. coli bacteria found in unpasteurized apple juice and cider.