Ann Arbor

  • Ann Arbor high school senior suffers long illness; cause unknown

    Posted: May 18th, 2010 - 10:46am by Doug Powell

    AnnArbor.com reports that for the past three years, Kayla Brophy (right, photo from AnnArbor.com) dreamt what this spring would be like. A steady contributor to the Saline High School softball team since she was a freshman, this was her time.

    She was going to be a senior captain in the pitching circle. After splitting time with upperclassmen - including her own sister, Lisa, for two years - this year’s Hornet squad was going to be Brophy’s team to put on her shoulders and carry.

    It didn’t happen. Instead, she spent February, March and April in a light-headed, queasy-stomached fog. She missed 10 weeks of school. She made numerous trips to the emergency room for intravenous fluids. She took a battery of tests administered by a battery of doctors.

    It all started on Jan. 30 when Brophy was suffering from severe flu-like symptoms. Maybe it was the flu. Or maybe it was food poisoning? A virus? Nobody is sure.

    But when she turned gray and clammy, Carol and Steve Brophy decided to drive their middle child to the emergency room. When Kayla kept losing consciousness as they tried to put on her shoes, Carol and Steve decided to call an ambulance.

    After that night’s scare and a two-day hospital stay, Brophy embarked on a 90-day cycle of continuing illness and frustration. With all tests coming back negative, doctors were left to assume that she was battling a virus or simply needed to wait as her body corrected itself from the loop it was thrown for on Jan. 30.

    I wonder if it had anything to do with E. coli O145, which would surface a few months later in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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    Ann Arbor, e. coli O145, kayla brophy, michigan
  • Ann Arbor E. coli outbreak sickens 10

    Posted: April 19th, 2010 - 9:47pm by Doug Powell

    Amy’s always telling me how great Ann Arbor is, because she spent six years getting PhD-ified there at the University of Michigan.

    I’ve been there a couple of times, driving between Ontario and Kansas with Amy, and didn’t think much of the place. Expensive and dumpy.

    Now Ann Arbor has its own outbreak of E. coli (sounds like O157:H7) amongst at least 10 residents. Other details were sparse – which is weird considering it’s such a big university town (that was sarcasm).

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    Ann Arbor, e. coli, Illness, michigan
  • E. coli outbreak in ground beef linked to Whole Foods Markets

    Posted: August 9th, 2008 - 7:59am by Amy Hubbell

    When I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Whole Foods was adjacent to my apartment complex. It was cruel, really. I couldn’t afford to shop there very often but the food always looked so delicious, and, well, wholesome. Yesterday, however, Whole Foods Market recalled fresh ground beef sold between June 2 and August 6 for a possible contamination with E. coli O157:H7.

    Seven are sick in Massachusetts and two in Pennsylvania. None in Ann Arbor, yet.

    Whole Foods has successfully built its reputation on natural and organic foods with high prices to make you believe you are doing good to your body by shopping there. Personally, I shopped there for the wide array of cheeses and pâté that wasn’t available in my favorite (more affordable) grocery. This outbreak raises the question for me – why are people still getting sick from ground beef processed at Nebraska Beef Ltd. that was previously recalled? And, as Bill Marler points out, why was Whole Foods selling Nebraska Beef? He offers a list of hard-hitting questions for the elite grocery chain that touts its own high standards.

    On a side note, the Whole Foods that used to be in my backyard in Ann Arbor has since become a Trader Joe’s. Whole Foods moved down the street to a much larger and fancier location.

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    Ann Arbor, Beef, Ground Beef, Nebraska Beef, O157:h7, University Of Michigan, Whole Foods