Colton George felt sick. The 9-year-old Indiana boy told his parents his stomach hurt. He kept running to the bathroom and felt too ill to finish a basketball game.

Days later, he lay in a hospital bed, fighting for his life. He had eaten tainted salad, according to a lawsuit against the lettuce grower filed by his parents on April 17 in federal court for the Southern District of Indiana.

The E. coli bacteria that ravaged Colton’s kidneys was a genetic match to the strain that killed one person and sickened nearly 90 people in 15 states last fall. Federal health agencies investigated the cases and linked them to a farm that grew romaine lettuce.

But most people have never heard about this outbreak, which a Feb. 11 internal FDA memo linked to a single lettuce processor and ranch as the s

See Full Page