OVERVIEW

They started getting sick in early June of 1997. Some just had a bad stomachache; others had severe cramping and were passing blood. They suffered from a potentially lethal strain of the bacterium Escherichia coli (0157:H7). By mid-August some dozen-odd cases, all in Colorado, were traced back to a processing plant in Columbus, Nebraska. The plant's operator, Hudson Foods, eventually recalled 25 million pounds of frozen hamburger to attempt to stem the outbreak.

That particular plant processes about 400,000 pounds of hamburger daily. Ironically, this plant had received high marks for its cleanliness and adherence to federal food-processing standards. What led to the recall of about one-fifth of the plant's annual output was the lack of a database that could track the patties back to the slaughterhouses that supply carcasses to the Columbus plant. It is believed that the meat was contaminated in one of these slaughterhouses, but without such tracking, all were suspect.

Put simply, the lack of an adequate time-varying database cost Hudson Foods $25 million.

Dr. Brad De Groot is a veterinarian working in Clay Center, Nebraska, about 60 miles southeast of Columbus. He is interested in improving the health maintenance of cows on their way to your freezer. He hopes to establish the...