State investigators are trying to trace the source of two E. coli infections, one of them fatal, in young children who visited the Oxford County Fair and its petting zoo in September.
Colton Guay, a 20-month-old boy from Poland, died from complications of E. coli a week after visiting the fair.
Myles Herschaft, a 17-month-old boy from Auburn, developed the same complication, called hemolytic uremic syndrome. He was listed in satisfactory condition Tuesday at Maine Medical Center in Portland, improving from critical condition the previous week.
The infections have touched on a risk that, while still small, is of constant worry to farmers such as Gloria and Mark Goughan, who run Goughan’s Berry Farm in Caribou, where people buy and pick berries and produce, play miniature golf, navigate an annual corn maze, and visit a donkey, goose, chickens and sheep in a barn.
“We just constantly are cleaning,” Mark Goughan said. “It’s part of your thought process and bible of how to run the farm.”
Goughan remembers growing up around farm animals and being among their manure.
“We were in it all the time. I don’t remember any infection from farm animals. It’s a common sense safety issue for anyone,” he said.
People typically contract the bacteria by coming in contact with animal feces and then eating or touching their mouths with contaminated hands.
For that reason, health officials and farming experts alike recommend a simple but effective step to protect against a number of potential germs: hand washing. Hand sanitizers also work, but not quite as well, they say.
“Nothing beats hot water and soap and washing your hands the way we’re all supposed to,” said John Rebar, executive director of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Exposure to E. coli is usually harmless but occasionally deadly, if the animals or humans carry dangerous strains. Humans and animals carry the E. coli bacteria in their digestive systems.
Some strains of the E. coli produce potentially deadly toxins. Laboratory tests conducted on Tuesday in connection with the two boys’ cases found the presence of “shiga toxins” associated with E. coli, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Further tests are expected to take until next week. State officials are investigating the fact both children separately attended the Oxford Fair and visited the animal barns and petting zoo, but they haven’t confirmed the boys became infected on the fairgrounds.
Manure from farm animals and wildlife alike can lead to E. coli contamination.
“It’s not just domestic livestock that present a risk,” Rebar said.
Farmers have to worry about preventing contamination of their crops — such as from black bears wandering into the Goughan’s berry fields — and also preventing risks to the public, if they’re welcoming customers to visit the farm, buy and pick produce, eat ice cream and explore.
“When you turn your farm into a tourist destination and open it up to the public, that creates a lot of different dynamics that don’t exist in a [commercial] farm,” Rebar said. “The safety of the tourists or your customer is paramount.”
It’s a concern that Goughan said is on his mind, especially in the fall as hundreds of people visit on the weekends to explore his elaborate corn maze.
“We try to always be ahead of the curve. We read best practices in the literature,” Goughan said. His farm’s animals, including a donkey named Wilbur and two sheep named Thelma and Louise, walk in and out of the barn into a fenced-in grazing field, accepting grains or grass from the hands of adults and children.
This year, the Goughans have added hand sanitizer in the barn, and they clean the floors every morning. They steam-clean the whole barn, including the pens, in the spring, before the summer berry season, and in early September, before the crowds.
“For my children and grandchildren, I’m happy with what we’re doing, that we are clean and safe,” Goughan said.
Farmers assume both extra liability and a new source of income when they welcome the public onto their property, Rebar said.
“It’s good for business,” he said. Still, “all it takes is one bad event and it can damage certainly that farm but also the industry as a whole.”
Among livestock, E. coli is most often found in cattle, but sheep and goats are common carriers, along with deer, according to the World Health Organization. Pigs, horses, rabbits, dogs, cats and poultry also may carry the bacteria.
Health officials warn that poultry may harbor another type of bacteria, salmonella. As with E. coli, they urge hand washing after handling the birds, especially for young children who may cuddle with baby chicks and then stick their hands in their mouths.
People visiting farms, parents especially, should also be cognizant of “common sense safety,” Goughan said, noting another issue perhaps as dangerous as E. coli — the roads along some farms that might see high speeds and some traffic.
“Parents come out and let their kids run, which we don’t mind, but they could run out into that road, and [they] need to keep them off of it,” he said.
BDN Enterprise Editor Jackie Farwell contributed to this report.
