Food poisoning lawyers serve their clients who have sustained serious illness, complications, and resulting permanent health consequences resulting from exposure to any of the large number of bacteria that may be found in a variety of foods, most commonly pre-cooked or ready-made foods such as luncheon meat or hot dogs, or green produce such as lettuce or spinach that may have been improperly processed or contaminated in packaging, or foods inadequately cooked at restaurants. Examples of the variety of bacteria that can result in serious food poisoning illness include Escheerichia coli O157:H7, commonly referred to as E coli or Ecoli, Listeria, Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella.

These cases of bacterial illness can be presented to food poisoning lawyers as incidents of only a single infected individual or group of individuals exposed to the bacteria, as where they may consume the food at a family meal or restaurant; or food poisoning attorneys may be presented with hundreds of cases, where, for example, contaminated food, such as luncheon meat, or contaminated spinich or lettuce, is distributed in large quantities to grocery stores often across the country, in several states.

A discussion of all the many food poisoning illnesses and the food poisoning lawyers strategies for prosecuting the cases is necessarily beyond the scope of this article. What we will do below is discuss one common illness, Ecoli, and its serious consequences, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, HUS, and Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, TTP, and will discuss one recent outbreak of Ecoli poisoning from contaminated spinach, grown in California, largely distributed through a California company, repackaged into retail products by other food distributors and then sold at retail by grocery stores accross the country. For a more complete discussion of food poisoning illness, you may wish to consult Our California Food Poisoning Lawyers Discussion of Ecoli, Listeria, Botulism, Campylobacter, Norovirus, Salmonella and Shigella

Limiting here the discussion to the food poisoning lawyers approch to Ecoli illness and HUS and TTP cases, first, it is "Escherichia coli O157:H7" which is commonly referred to by food poisoning lawyers as E. coli or Ecoli. Escherichia coli is a class of ordinary bacteria. The Ecoli bacterium is represented by hundreds of different "strains." E coli is everywhere, indeed, it is present in the lower digestive tract of all humans and mammals. Indeed, the bacterium performs an important function in digestion, essential for human survival.

It is recognized by food poisoning lawyers and TTP and HUS attorneys that it is a specific strain of the E coli bacterium, Escherichia coli O157:H7 which results in the particular toxin which results in human illness, sometimes very serious illness, such as HUS and TTP. The alpha numeric designation, O157:H7, refers to the genetic markers on the surface of this particular strain of the bacterium, distinguishing it from the other benign Ecoli strains.

Exposure to Ecoli O157:H7 in foods can result in very serious illness, including Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, which food poisoning lawyers refer to as HUS. HUS can result in kidney failure and often can require kidney replacement or a lifetime on dialysis. Ecoli O157:H7 exposure can also result in Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, commonly referred to by food poisoning lawyers as TTP, which in addition to kidney failure, can result in strokes and other serious neurological effects. Ecoli illness can also result in acute renal failure and death.

It is also recognized by food poisoning attorneys that there are a variety of food products that are most commonly contaminated with the deadly Ecoli strain, which include ground beef that may be undercooked at home or at a restaurant, salamis, milk or juice that is unpasturized, as well as lettuce, spinach, and sprouts. The most recent large outbreak of Ecoli illness of 2006 was found to result from contaminated California grown lettuce.

Large food poisoning outbreaks are investigated by the Centers for Disease Control, and the investigations conducted can provide invaluable evidence for use by food poisoning lawyers in the prosecution of outbreak cases. The CDC will interview those infected, identify the foods they ate which may be the common denominator, the common cause of the outbreak illness, and examine foods left over in refrigerators, or on the grocery store shelves, where available, to perform testing to identify this deadly strain of the bacterium.

The number of those infected will be disclosed by the CDC. From the CDC web site, as of September 24, 2006, it was recorded 173 individuals had been infected as the result of exposure to the California lettuce, involving Ecoli illness in 25 states, by reason of the nationwide distribution of the contaminated spinach.

To provide a sense of the seriousness of the 2006 Spinach Ecoli outbreak, the CDC data disclosed that 53 percent of those identified as having suffered Ecoli illness as the result of this one outbreak required hospitalization, another 16 percent contracted HUS, and one died. Most were children or the elderly, who are more susceptible to Ecoli infection.

Also helpful to food poisoning lawyers, in addition to the involved California farms, the CDC identified the principle distributor, Natural Selection Foods, LLC, of San Juan Bautista, California, as well as the secondary distributors, and retailers, permitting the attorneys to identify all potential defendants in the chain of commerce.

In individual food poisoning litigation the Ecoli HUS lawyers must conduct sometimes intensive investigation to identify the source of the exposure to the bacterium which caused the client's illness. Some food poisoning lawyers will have taken the course in food management offered for those who want to become Certified Food Managers in order to supplement their knowledge and experience in complex litigation with education specific to food management. Food poisoning lawyers in outbreak cases and individual cases must also be trial lawyers, experienced in presenting the expert testimony to present both the "liability" case, and the "damages" case, in which the client's illness, complications, sometimes debilitating health consequences, loss of enjoyment of life, past and future medical expenses and past and future loss of earnings resulting from the illness must be competently presented to assure that the client is fairly compensated.