POTENTIALLY DEADLY E. COLI BACTERIA:
has returned with a vengeance. More than 25 million pounds of beef believed to be tainted went to market in 2007, up from less than 200,000 pounds the year before.

Government regulators and beef industry officials have been scrambling to explain the increase in beef contamination. Among the theories: –rising oil prices have encouraged greater production of ethanol, which creates a corn byproduct that increasingly is being used as cattle feed. This feed appears to make the animals’ digestive tracts even more hospitable breeding grounds for the toxic strain of E. coli bacteria, says Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator in the Office of   Field Operations at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

— From “Authorities investigate big rise in beef contamination,”  on this “Consumer protection” site of the March 2008 Consumer Reports: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/consumer-protection/recalls-and-safety-alerts-3-08
/rise-in-beef-contamination/recalls-beef-contamination.htm