AN INEDIBLE BEEF STEW

By MICHAEL KRANTZ

On July 3, while camping with her family in New Mexico, 12-year-old Nicole Schlegelmilch ate a bad burger. Six days later she was in an emergency room back home in Denver, cramping, dehydrated and passing blood. By July 11, as she began to recover, doctors still wondered just what had hit her.

Last week, as a meat-loving nation watched the largest beef recall in history, everyone knew the culprit: a lethal strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli. The bug causes 20,000 infections a year in the U.S., most because of undercooked beef. The typical result is excruciating gastrointestinal distress. But for a few unlucky souls though--usually young children and the elderly--the consequences can be dire, even fatal.

The Colorado outbreak began in early June, when a young food-poisoning sufferer gave what he considered to be a suspicious beef patty to county health officials near his Pueblo home. By mid-August, at least 14 more cases--including Schlegelmilch's--had cropped up statewide, all traceable to patties prepared at a Columbus, Neb., meat-processing plant owned by Hudson Foods of Rogers, Ark. The contamination probably originated at one of the slaughterhouses that supplies the Nebraska plant, but U.S. Department of Agriculture investigators found extensive problems at the plant, including the practice of tossing one day's leftover raw beef into the next day's batch. In response to heightening USDA pressure, Hudson last week closed the plant, pending safety upgrades, and expanded to 25 million lbs. its recall of possibly tainted beef.

Might there be more victims? No illnesses from Hudson products have yet appeared outside Colorado, but the company's patties sell nationwide. Among those who pulled Hudson from freezers and griddles were Wal-Mart, Safeway, Burger King and Boston Market; last Friday 700 Burger Kings had to offer BLTs and ham-and-cheese sandwiches instead of Whoppers.

The saga reignites old concerns aboutwhether the government, apart from issuing warnings about cooking meat properly (160[degrees] for a standard patty), does enough to ensure food safety. Nicole Schlegelmilch got sick in early July, but, her mother Ann complains, "I didn't hear from the health department until Aug. 9." And the hospital epidemiologist said Nicole's illness was the first the hospital knew of an E. coli outbreak--although it had been several weeks since that suspect patty was turned in by the first victim. Why did officials take so long to interview E. coli victims, and why didn't hospitals know of the outbreak until long after it was identified?

Such questions led Schlegelmilch, a Denver receptionist, to join STOP (Safe Tables Our Priority), a Washington group for parents whose children have eaten tainted food. "I haven't purchased any ground beef," she says, "and I probably won't ever again."

--By Michael Krantz. With reporting by Dick Thompson/Washington

With reporting by Dick Thompson/Washington