 Rylee Gustafson |
Rylee Gustafson is a Henderson, Nevada, resident who became ill from E. coli in spinach in 2006.
Rylee’s mother, Kathleen Chrismer, had taken her to Monterey, California, for her ninth birthday. While they had planned to visit attractions like the aquarium, they ended up spending a month in the hospital. Rylee awoke the day after arriving with severe stomach pain and diarrhea. Admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit, she experienced dehydration, hallucinations, low blood pressure, and kidney failure. Her infection was later traced to a spinach salad she had eaten on the way to Monterey.
Rylee has irreversible kidney problems and has recently been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Kathleen is now a member of the board for STOP Foodborne Illness, a nonprofit public health organization dedicated to preventing cases of foodborne illness.
Related: 'We Can't Wait for Stronger Food Safety'
Testimony by Rylee Gustafson
My story begins with a spinach salad I ate at home in August 2006, when I was 9. The spinach was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. My symptoms began four days later while celebrating my birthday in San Francisco. I experienced diarrhea, stomach cramps and a lack of energy. No one thought it was too serious. In fact, my mom thought I was faking it to get out of doing my homework.
After a few hours, however, I had excruciating pain in my stomach and had continuous bloody stool. Within 12 hours I was admitted to a hospital, where they discovered the infection. I was immediately transferred to UCSF Children’s Hospital, which was better-equipped to handle the complications the doctors knew were ahead.
I was lying in the hospital bed, confused and scared. I remember thinking I was going to die and seeing my dad cry for the first time.
There were plenty of immediate health consequences as a result of the E. coli infection. I developed hemolytic uremic syndrome. My kidneys began to fail, which made me require dialysis. My pancreas was damaged, and I needed insulin to control my blood sugar. Fluid built up around my heart and lungs, which required drainage tubes to be inserted into three places in my chest. Swelling around my brain caused temporary psychosis, blindness, and hearing loss.
One week after eating the spinach, I was fighting for my life, and the doctors told my family to prepare for the worst. By the third week of my hospital stay, I thankfully started to regain kidney function.
Being confined to a bed in the intensive care unit for three weeks made me very weak. I had to relearn to walk, speak, and do normal tasks such as dress and feed myself. After 34 days in the hospital, most of them in the ICU, I was finally able to return home to Nevada to recover.
It has been over six years, but the mental and physical scars linger. I frequently think about the safety of the food I eat and am constantly reminded about the dialysis catheter and drainage tubes in my chest. The severity of my illness will likely cause me to need kidney transplants before I'm 30. Last year the diabetes returned — a long-term consequence of the damage to my pancreas. Now, before every meal or snack, I have to give myself a shot of insulin — one more reminder of my illness.
Unfortunately, my experience is not unique. When people ask me why I am passionate about food safety, the answer is simple: I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I did — or worse, die because of something they ate. I have been able to take my experience and make a positive impact by sharing my story. But my job as a food safety advocate is far from over. Being here today — to support the FDA in the release of the proposed produce safety rule and to encourage the agency to finalize it quickly with the hope that fewer people, young and old, are forced to suffer because of foodborne illness — is just the next chapter in my story.
In January 2011, President Barack Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law, signaling the first major update to our nation’s food safety oversight framework since the Great Depression. Despite widespread support for the legislation and its implementation, the Obama administration still has not issued all of the proposed rules under FSMA.
More infoThe Pew Charitable Trusts applauds Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) for her efforts to strengthen food safety protections under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, and provide grant funding to help school cafeterias across the nation upgrade their equipment to serve healthy, appealing meals to millions of school children. Funding for both programs was included in a larger bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
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More infoAs a pediatrician, my No. 1 concern is to keep children safe and healthy. Inside the walls of my office, I can provide services and counseling to help do just that, whether by giving an infant her first childhood vaccine, providing a mental health screening to an adolescent patient or counseling parents about how to keep their homes as safe as possible. Unfortunately, there are some threats to children's health that are beyond my control, including the food they consume.
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More infoDuring a 15-year span beginning in the mid-1990s, infections in the United States from the pathogen vibrio have increased threefold, according to data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.
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More info"Twenty-two weeks. That’s how long it took federal health officials to determine the contaminated food source after the first person was infected in a 2011 outbreak of salmonella that swept across 34 states, sickened 136 people and led to one of the largest national recalls of ground turkey."
More infoA multistate outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg infections linked to ground turkey in 2011 sickened 136 people, causing 37 hospitalizations and one death. The Pew Charitable Trusts' analysis of the outbreak found numerous inadequacies in the foodborne illness surveillance system that, if addressed, could help to prevent illnesses and, in some cases, deaths.
More infoAn examination of a Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak linked to ground turkey illustrates that health authorities must be more aggressive in their efforts to detect and respond to foodborne illnesses, according to a new report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, titled “Too Slow: An Analysis of the 2011 Salmonella Ground Turkey Outbreak and Recommendations for Improving Detection and Response.” In all, the contaminated food sickened a reported 136 people in the United States, hospitalized 37 and killed one, according to government data.
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More infoMy name is Jennifer Exley, and I reside in Centennial, Colorado. I am the daughter of Herbert Stevens, who was deeply impacted by listeria-contaminated cantaloupe in August 2011. As you well know, 147 people were sickened and 33 people died in that outbreak — the deadliest in 25 years. My father was one of the so-called lucky survivors. His health and quality of life was, and remains, seriously affected because of something he ate.
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