She called her local health center to ask for more information, and learned that not only is there no dangerous outbreak of E. coli, there is no emergency underwear confiscation program in progress. For an inspection please take off the panties you're wearing now and put them in a plastic bag and present them to us. The caller then asked her to leave the bag of underwear in a nearby park, where it would be collected. His system did fool a high school student last month, who followed the instructions and left an underwear package underneath a park bench. News reports do not make clear exactly how a bacteria outbreak might be analyzed from a pair of underpants, or what other kind of information could be obtained, but it's safe to say that this method exists outside the realm of conventional laboratory testing.
Health centers continue to receive a steady stream of reports about the ruse.