I'm sorry to hear about your child. You of course are right. Most cases come individually and unfortunately it is only the very sick that we hear about. It doesn't take much bad E Coli to make you sick. One thing that has emerged so far is we know very little about the microbe.
Considerable effort is devoted currently to developing remedies that can be applied on the farm.
A number of you have asked us whether we eat meat, whether we've changed our eating habits and whether we practice what we preach. I think it's fair to say that we are pretty careful. One thing I learned a long time ago is that you don't take the steak to the barbecue grill on the plate and then after the meat is cooked, put it back on that same plate to bring it back into the house. The early symptoms feel like the flu and that's what most people think it is. Severe vomiting, painful diarrhea and often bloody diarrhea which is caused by E Coli's assault on blood vessels in the intestines.