The suggestion that sprouts may be the cause of the outbreak, one of the most catastrophic food-borne illnesses in years, was met with caution by public health experts.
Industrialized countries eradicated most water-borne diseases 100 years ago by distributing chlorinated treated water through piped distribution systems and treating sewage before it reaches our public water sources.
Interestingly, in the census of the following year, Ada initially recorded that she had only borne five children during 13 years of marriage, all of whom she claimed remained alive.
With the emergence or re-emergence of numerous mosquito-borne diseases in recent years, effective methods for emergency vector control responses are necessary to reduce human infections.
The outbreak was the deadliest outbreak of food-borne illness in 25 years, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that people living in 28 states consumed contaminated cantaloupe.
"There's been an increase in food-borne disease in recent years because of the globalization of the food supply," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.
But they were too late to prevent what has become one of the nation's worst known outbreaks of food-borne disease in recent years, in which nine are believed to have died and an estimated 22,500 were sickened.
Athletes competing in aquatic events should be familiar with the risks of water-borne infections: only five years ago former British Olympic rower Andy Holmes died from Weil's syndrome caused by infection with leptospira caught from the fresh water of Lincolnshire in England.
But the agency said it was acting out of an abundance of caution after 32 people in 11 states fell sick with a virulent form of E. coli, a bacteria blamed for a number of food-borne outbreaks in recent years.
Researchers have found that people living in the highlands of Africa and South America are at an increased risk of catching the mosquito-borne disease during hotter years.
