E.coli Outbreak at Chipotle and Costco, a Coincidence?

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Costco recently responded to customer concerns about selling farmed, genetically modified salmon by announcing they would not sell this product. Whereas these outbreaks are not necessarily linked, the E.coli bacteria found at Chipotle was genetically E.coli 026 and the strain found at Costco was E.coli 157, a more harmful strain, they both nonetheless occur after these companies declared their intent to use non GMO products.

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In August of 2015 there was reported an outbreak of Norovirus infecting over 200 people in Simi Valley, California.  Interestingly, a Chipotle restaurant in Massachusetts  reported an outbreak of Norovirus associated with people eating there infecting 136. What are the odds three essentially concurrent intestinal outbreaks would occur to one restaurant chain?

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I read articles written by supposed balanced news sources and I am appalled by the gleeful feeding frenzy against Chipotle.  Bloomberg Business Week reports: “At Chipotle, three different pathogens caused the five known outbreaks. That wasn’t inevitable or coincidental.  “There’s a problem within the company,” says Michael Doyle, the director of the center for food safety at the University of Georgia.  Chipotle has gotten big selling food that’s unprocessed, free of antibiotics and GMOs, sometimes organic, sometimes local. “Blah, blah, blah,” says Doug Powell, a retired food-safety professor and the publisher of barfblog.com. “They were paying attention to all that stuff, but they weren’t paying attention to microbial safety.” Whatever its provenance, if food is contaminated it can still make us sick—or even kill. Millennials may discriminate when they eat, but bacteria are agnostic.”  As if Chipotle purposely ignored all food safety standards to intentionally poison their customers. 

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Financial experts predict it will be impossible to value Chipotle’s worth until the fallout from this clears.  Per WND.com “The legal limbo appears to be what has analysts most confused in terms of gauging Chipotle’s value.”

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Could this all in fact be a war over our food supply? I live in Jackson County, Oregon. This past year we voted in a law that prohibits the growing of GMO seeds or crops. Millions of dollars were spent by Monsanto et al to defeat this bill. It passed despite their money. Also more money has been spent in trying to overturn this law. The compromise is that GM farmers have 8 years to remove these crops. A delay but still a victory.

It is mind boggling when you consider the millions of dollars spent by companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta to promote GM crops and prevent labeling.

Per EWG  “Food and biotechnology companies spent $63.6 million in 2014 alone to oppose mandatory labeling of genetically modified food ingredients, or GMOs,

according to a new analysis by EWG.

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Let there be no doubt, there is a war going on in our world and in our food supply. More and more people are voting with their dollars buying organic or non GM foods. More and more countries are banning GMOs. More people are beginning to see past the smoke and mirrors of the big chemical companies such as Monsanto and demanding safer foods. And I believe this frightens them.

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I find it perfectly imaginable that deep pocket GM industrialists would punish outspoken non GM companies. So I have to ask the question, could someone purposely contaminate a food supply to control, manipulate and cause fear to promote their agenda?  In my opinion yes. It’s just all too coincidental and convenient given the evidence.

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