Without Proof, Germany Places E. Coli Blame on Organic Farm

As Gaia Health warned, the blame for a deadly E. coli outbreak is being placed on an organic farm—in spite of the fact that the farmer has no animals on his farm.

by Heidi Stevenson

10 June 2011

It's no pleasure to inform readers that Gaia Health's prediction that an organic farm would be blamed for the deadly European outbreak of E. coli is proving to be correct.

After first placing the blame on another country's cucumbers proved to be both presumptuous and wrong—based on the results of laboratory tests—Germany has now announced that a German organic bean sprouts are guilty—in spite of uniformly negative lab results!

Though not a single E. coli pathogen was found on a single bean sprout, Germany is announcing that, based on an epidemiological investigation, the cause of the outbreak is the northern German farm.

They're saying that organic farmers, in particular, have come under suspicion because they use natural manure. Of course, they never mention that this is aged and mulched manure, not fresh. Nor do they mention that organic management of manure is much more careful than that of Agribusiness. Nor do they ever mention that the original cause of E. coli as a dangeorus pathogen is a direct result of Agribusiness's massive and routine misuse of antibiotics.

Reinhard Burger, who is the president of the institute responsible for disease control in Germany, said that, though they don't have laboratory tests proving the organic sprouts caused the deadly outbreak, they have "enough evidence" to conclude that the sprouts from Klaus Verbeck's farm are guilty. His company doesn't say how they were contaminated, only that they were.

The fact is that, even if the source of the E. coli outbreak was the organic sprouts, that still does not implicate the farm itself! German officials don't seem to care about that, though the management of the sprouts after leaving Verbeck's animal-free farm was, apparently, not part of the study.

Nonetheless, Germany has announced that there can be no doubt that Verbeck's farm is the source of the killer E. coli infections.

Blaming Organics

There can be little doubt that this tragic affair has been coopted to place the blame on the safest, healthiest, and most innocent of farming practices. Organic farming produces the most nutrient-dense and safest foods because of a lack of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and other unnatural techniques that are being shown, more and more every day, to be enormously dangerous to health and the environment.

Rather than finding the real source of contamination, it looks very much like Germany decided to go after organics in general, and Verbeck's farm appears to be the one that's blamed for all the deaths.

At this time, 22 people have died and well over 2,000 have become ill. That's not something to be taken lightly. More importantly, though, these people's deaths should not be used to railroad a farm that, at this point, has not been shown to be guilty. In point of fact, the only actually solid evidence demonstrates that it's most likely innocent.

Organic farming is becoming more and more popular as people discover the corrupt methods of Agribusiness and their devastating effects on health and the environment. At this point, there appear to be no new outbreaks and no reason to rush to judgement. There is no reason to place blame until it's definitively known where it belongs.

This episode appears to be the use of a tragic event to convince people that consuming organics is harmful. As the story fades from the headlines, it's exceedingly unlikely that the full tale will ever be produced for the public. If it is, it will be relegated to the back pages. The impression of organic food as dangerous is left in the public's mind, and one more step has been taken to eliminate our control over our food and health.

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