Spain takes Germany to task over E. coli source

Spain's environment minister said Friday that there was no evidence that Spanish organic cucumbers are the source of a lethal outbreak of the intestinal bacterium E. coli that killed three people and infected 273 others in Germany. Cases were also reported in Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

"I have just spoken a few minutes ago with the German minister of agriculture," Rosa Aguilar told reporters. "It is not known at this time where these products were contaminated. There is no evidence that it was at the place of origin."

Meanwhile, the secretary of state for the environment, Josep Puxeu, said Spain had filed a formal complaint with Germany and the European Union over the handling of the case.

Puxeu lamented that the story went straight to the press rather than being channeled through existing alert networks. The European Commission admitted the contamination could have occurred outside Spain. "It could have occurred during transportation or distribution to stores in Germany itself," said Frédéric Vincent, the commission's health spokesman. A suspect batch from The Netherlands was also being investigated.

But exporting companies from Málaga and Almería - where German authorities said the organic cucumbers came from - confirmed that several countries are cancelling their orders. The Andalusian agriculture commissioner, Clara Aguilera, said the regional government is "indignant" over the German administration's "irresponsibility" in linking the infection with the Andalusian vegetables. This "hasty, unjustified and irresponsible" attitude has created a major health alarm that is directly affecting Andalusia's fruit and vegetable production.

The Málaga-based company Frunet Bio, a suspect of causing this lethal outbreak, said its organic cucumbers are not contaminated and that there are three microbiological tests to prove it. A spokesman said that a German buyer told them a batch of 900kg of cucumbers had fallen on the ground at the Hamburg market. "When this kind of thing happens, you cannot guarantee the proper custody of the food product," he said.