By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER and DAVID RISING
Associated Press
BERLIN – After a month of searching and testing thousands of vegetables, simple detective work trumped science in the hunt for the source of the world’s deadliest E. coli outbreak. The culprit: German-grown sprouts.
Health officials announced Friday that sprouts from a farm in northern Germany caused the outbreak that has killed 31 people, sickened nearly 3,100 and prompted much of Europe to shun vegetables.
“It was like a crime thriller where you have to find the bad guy,” said Helmut Tschiersky-Schoeneburg, head of Germany’s consumer protection agency.