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What does and doesn’t kill E. coli? What to know amid multiple outbreaks
From McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburger outbreak last month to a current recall of organic carrots sold at grocery stores across the country, E. coli outbreaks are making headlines — and prompting questions about how to stay safe from the bacteria that can cause sickness.
The carrot recall was issued by California grower Grimmway Farms on Saturday after nearly 40 cases were recorded in 18 states. At least 15 people were hospitalized and one person has died, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The McDonald’s outbreak has killed one person in Colorado and affected at least 104 people across 14 states, according to the CDC.
Does cooking kill E. coli?
To kill E. coli present on carrots, you need to cook them to an internal temperature of at least 165°F, according to Dr. Céline Gounder, a CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health New. The same is true for killing E. coli in meat.
“You can use a food thermometer to confirm that this temperature was reached. So long as the food reaches this temperature, you can feel safe that E. coli bacteria have been eliminated,” she said. “Also note that some strains of E. coli are heat-resistant and can survive cooking temperatures as high as 160°F.”
If you have any recalled carrots in your home, the CDC recommends throwing them out or returning them to the store.
“Do not eat any recalled bagged organic carrots. Check your refrigerators or freezers for recalled carrots and throw them away,” the agency notes. “Wash items and surfaces that may have touched the recalled organic carrots using hot soapy water or a dishwasher.”
Family physician Dr. Beth Oller agrees it’s not worth the risk.
“If you have any of (the impacted produce), do not even risk it,” she told CBS News. “You know that this bacteria is on there, get rid of it. Get rid of anything that it has touched.”
How does E. coli get on vegetables?
There are several ways an E. coli contamination can occur, Gounder recently explained.
In meat, contamination can come from the bacteria that are in the intestines.
“E. coli reside in the intestine, so that’s one way in which you can have that contamination occur,” she said. “But also people who have not perhaps washed their hands properly (or) the facility.”
Infection can happen through contaminated food or water or contact with animals, environments or other people, the CDC’s website notes.
The best way to prevent infection is by keeping your hands clean, preparing food safely and drinking safe water, the agency adds.
Does washing vegetables kill E. coli?
While washing vegetables can help remove dirt, pesticides and some bacteria on the surface, it isn’t enough to kill all E. coli on foods, Gounder said.
“No matter how well you wash, it’s not going to kill it,” Oller said.
Does freezing kill E. coli?
While freezing foods can slow the growth of bacteria, it doesn’t kill E. coli.
“Freezing vegetables does not kill E. coli bacteria,” Gounder said. “Freezing pauses bacterial growth, but once food is thawed, E. coli can grow and multiply again.”
So while you may think there’s “no way something can survive being frozen,” Oller said, that’s “not true with E. coli.”
Why are there so many E. coli outbreaks?
After the outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, Gounder said this is the result of a highly industrialized processed food supply.
“(This) means that your food is getting processed at different places at different points in time, each of which creates an opportunity for the introduction of some contaminant, whether that’s E. coli or listeria or something else,” she said. “All of these recent food contamination events are a signal to us that we do need to be paying a bit more attention to testing in some of these facilities.”
Oller pointed to more potential factors: growing antimicrobial resistance, which makes bacteria hardier, and large-scale food production and distribution, which allows outbreaks to spread further.
“Because that’s the world we live in now, it spreads throughout a country, instead of it just being a localized (issue),” she said.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s concerns about the health effects of fluoride may already be helping some Americans — investors in dental services companies.
Shares in Dentsply Sirona, Envista, Henry Schein Patterson Companies, and other providers of dental products are jumping, with Wall Street betting that a potential push by the incoming Trump administration to remove fluoride from the nation’s drinking water could spur demand for the companies’ services.
Kennedy, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said on social media just ahead of the November 5 presidential election that Trump would rid fluoride from the public water supply on his first day in office. Kennedy, a noted vaccine skeptic, has described fluoride as an “industrial waste” and linked it to arthritis, neurological deficiencies in children and other serious health problems.
“The thought here is RFK will bring to HHS a voice that is in favor of reducing, or eliminating, the amount of fluoridation that is added to drinking water,” Don Bilson, Gordon Haskett’s head of event-driven research, told investors in a report, according to NBC News. “This will, in turn, lead to an acceleration of tooth decay and more dental visits.”
Dental experts have largely refuted such claims. Dr. Aaron Yancoskie, associate dean of academic affairs at Touro College of Dental Medicine, told “CBS Mornings Plus” on November 13 that there is “excellent, solid data going back 75 years showing that fluoride is both safe, and it’s extremely effective at decreasing dental decay, that is, cavities, by strengthening the enamel of our teeth.”
According to KFF Health News, some studies have linked fluoride exposure among pregnant women to a higher risk of childhood neurobehavioral problems and lower IQs, leading experts to call for further research.
Fluoride is a mineral that keeps teeth healthy and reduces cavities by protecting them against bacteria that produces potentially damaging acid, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To prevent tooth decay, the U.S. has been adding a small quantity of fluoride to water since the 1950s.
Stocks have surged since Trump won a second term in the White House, with investors buoyed by his pledges during the campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris to cut corporate taxes and eliminate red tape for businesses.
contributed to this report.
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Washington — The House Ethics Committee is set to meet Wednesday as it faces increasing pressure to release a potentially damaging report detailing its investigation into allegations former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, two sources told CBS News.
The movements of the Ethics panel have been under heightened scrutiny since President-elect Donald Trump announced last week that he had selected Gaetz to serve as attorney general. The Florida Republican resigned his seat in the House in the wake of the announcement, which ended the Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction over Gaetz since he is now a former member.
The Ethics Committee declined to comment on the upcoming meeting. The panel was supposed to meet Friday to vote on releasing the report, but Trump tapped Gaetz for the nation’s top law enforcement officer days earlier. The committee then postponed its meeting.
Gaetz must win Senate confirmation to serve as attorney general, and senators have been calling to see the Ethics Committee’s report as they weigh whether to approve his nomination. Any confirmation hearings, which would be conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would not take place until next year after Trump is inaugurated. Republicans will gain control of the upper chamber in the next Congress, which begins Jan. 3.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told reporters last week that he believes senators should have access to the Ethics Committee’s findings.
“I think there should not be any limitations on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated,” said Cornyn, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Trump ally, similarly told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he believes the Senate should be able to see the report on Gaetz.
“Congress has to advise and consent, and Matt Gaetz is going to go through the same scrutiny as every other individual, and I’m going to give him a fair shot, just like every individual, and at the end of the day, the Senate has to confirm him,” he said.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson has cautioned against the release of the report by the Ethics Committee, warning in an interview Sunday that doing so for someone who is not a current House member “would be a Pandora’s box.”
“What I have said with regard to the report is that it should not come out. And why? Because Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member,” Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress.”
The House Ethics Committee first began its investigation into allegations of misconduct against Gaetz in April 2021, but deferred its consideration in response to a request from the Justice Department. It resumed its investigation in May 2023 after federal investigators declined to charge Gaetz following their sex-trafficking and obstruction probe.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and blamed the ethics probe on former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He has called the investigation a “smear.” The Florida congressman helped lead the historic effort to strip McCarthy of the speaker’s gavel last year.
The ethics panel said in June that it had spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas and reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of its investigation into Gaetz, and determined that “certain allegations merit continued review.”
The committee said it was examining accusations Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, gave “special privileges and favors” to people close to him and sought to obstruct government investigations into his conduct.
Multiple sources told CBS News at the time that four women told the Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties, which Gaetz attended, that included sex and drugs. The panel has the Florida Republican’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women. One woman who testified to the Ethics Committee said she had sex with Gaetz at a party in 2017, just after he was elected to Congress and when she was 17 years old, sources told CBS News at the time
Her lawyer, John Clune, said on social media last week that she was a high school student and “there were witnesses.”
“We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report,” Clune wrote.
