Scallions May Not Be To Blame For E. coli Outbreak
(AP) ALBANY, N.Y. Scallions may not be to blame in the Taco Bell E. coli
outbreak that has sickened hundreds.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said they did not find E. coli
on samples of green onions Taco Bell gave to them.
New York health officials had said that green onions were to blame for
making Taco Bell patrons sick.
Now state health officials are saying they had it wrong. They say they
instead found the E. coli bacteria on white onions from a Long Island Taco
Bell. They blame the confusion on a lab error.
The strain of the bacteria found on the white onions, they say, is not the
same as the one that has sickened more than 300 New Yorkers.
Taco Bell has already pulled green onions from from its 5,800 restaurants.
Health officials continue to search for the source of the E. coli
outbreak.
All 86 Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey were expected to be open
Tuesday
as the fast food chain struggles to resume operations after an E. coli
contamination that sickened scores of customers in five states.
A spokesman for the Mexican food chain said nineteen New Jersey Taco Bells
remained closed Monday.
Taco Bell said it was moving to reopen restaurants in the Northeast after
throwing out all its food, sanitizing the
facilities and restocking them.
The scheduled reopenings came as the number of suspected E. coli cases in
the Garden State grew to 73. Also yesterday, a southern New Jersey food
distributor that provides food to Taco Bell restaurants got a clean bill
of
health from state officials.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not
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