The causes are still unknown

Germany and other northern European countries are being hardest hit by a dangerous bacterial outbreak, which the German authorities initially attributed to a consignment of vegetables ? specifically cucumbers ? that came from agricultural cooperatives in the south of Spain. The outbreak of Escherichia coli has already assumed Europe-wide dimensions, and thus calls for concerted preventive action by all countries. It has so far caused 14 deaths and 329 serious illnesses in Germany, as well as a number of cases in Denmark, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands, having probably been transmitted by travelers coming from Germany.

To remedy the problems caused by the outbreak, the European authorities have to implement reasonable isolation protocols. In line with this principle any rational measure of protection must take priority, yet rational action has to exclude any pointless or hysterical alarmism. The recommendable general principle is to intensify supplementary analyses of fruits and vegetables, but not to close borders to trade in agricultural products. Hence the EC's decision not to block imports of cucumbers and other vegetables is a sound one.

Moreover, rational handling of a public health crisis demands that its causes, and the commercial channels by which it has spread, be determined accurately and promptly. Outbreaks of infection tend to be further complicated by situations of panic when there is unnecessary delay in discovering their origin and paths of propagation. In this case consumers look for someone to blame, and magnify the scarce information available. This is why it is essential to supply correct information to the public. And the main error in this case is precisely one of communication.

The food alert ought to have been transmitted to public opinion through the normal official channels, with the appropriate comments of the governments involved in the first instance ? those of Germany and Spain. But instead of sound information, the idea was released to the press that the infection had come from a consignment of Spanish cucumbers. A minimal acquaintance with the channels of production and marketing would have sufficed to understand that while the vegetables had indeed come from Spain, the contamination could have been taken place during other phases of the operation ? such as transport, in wholesale storage in Germany itself, or at any other moment of the process.

Now that the initial confusion can no longer be corrected, the economic damage is done. Spanish producers may lose up to 200 million euros a week due to the stoppage of market-garden imports, a stoppage caused by the unqualified attribution of the bacterial problem to vegetables from the south of Spain. This is not the right way to handle a food-poisoning scare. We can only hope that the outbreak will spread no further, and that its causes will become clear over the next few days.