Tests show Idaho toddler had E. coli

POCATELLO — Test results show that a 2-year-old who died after eating spinach was sickened by E. coli bacteria, but it's too soon to conclusively link the boy's illness with the nationwide tainted spinach case, a health department official said Friday.

Kyle Allgood, who would have turned 3 in December, died Sept. 20 at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. He had developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can strike those ill with E. coli.

The current outbreak of E. coli-related illness linked to fresh spinach has sickened more than 180 people in more than two dozen states, with one confirmed death, of an elderly Wisconsin woman.

Tests conducted at the Idaho State Laboratory this week showed the toddler had a virulent type of E. coli but it's still too early to say whether Kyle was made ill by tainted spinach or by some other food, said Ed Marugg, director of the Southeastern District Health Department, one of seven health districts in Idaho.

Additional test results are expected next week.

Genetic testing has shown that four other Idaho residents were among those sickened by spinach-related E. coli in the current outbreak, Marugg said. They have all recovered.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted its two-week-old consumer warning on most fresh spinach Friday, revising the alert to say it now covers only specific brands packaged on certain dates.

The warning now applies only to spinach recalled earlier this month by Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista, Calif., and four companies that it supplied, said Kevin Reilly, deputy director of prevention services for the California health department.

Kyle's mother, Robyn Allgood, said the boy consumed a smoothie that contained spinach shortly before becoming ill. Robyn Allgood also made a smoothie for her 5-year-old daughter, Maryn, but Maryn didn't finish her smoothie and did not become sick.

E. coli lives in the intestines of cattle and other animals and typically is linked to contamination by fecal material. It causes an estimated 73,000 cases of infection, including 61 deaths, each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sources can include uncooked produce, raw milk, unpasteurized juice, contaminated water and meat, especially undercooked or raw hamburger, the agency says on its Web site.