Testimony of Roni Rudolph

My name is Roni Rudolph. I am writing to you today in two capacities. one as a member and co-founder of STOP, Safe Tables Our Priority, a grassroots organization representing families and friends who have suffered from foodborne illness. The other as the mother of a beautiful 6 year old little girl named Lauren Beth, who died from E.Coli O157:H7 on December 28th ,1992 where she spent her 7th and last Christmas. Losing a child is truly the most horrifying experience a parent can witness. However, losing a child to E.coli O157:H7 is something so hideous , so ravaging to their little body , so painfully merciless. All the time knowing there is nothing that anyone can do to stop this torturous process...This is a preventable waste of a child's fragile, trusting and caring heart. E.coli O157:H7 is not at this time curable.

It has been two years since my only daughter Lauren fell victim to E.coli and I am here to tell you that I recall every single detail with agonizing clarity. Before I share with you what happened to my daughter the last ten days of her young life, I wish to also share with you, this deadly bacteria, E.coli O157:H7, does not strike in isolation and knows no age. The suffering, grief and loss affects families, friends and communities forever, it never stops hurting. You never forget the vision of losing your child. There never can be a good enough reason for this to have happened to someone you love or care about...All of us who have experienced the realities and the indignities of E.coli have in some way fallen victim, in life or in death, to E.coli O157:H7. NOBODY, should have to endure the pain and emptiness our families live with each day. No CHILD, her friends and schoolmates should have to learn at such a young and innocent age, the cold, senseless lesson, that a child's death provides...E.coli O157:H7 will not just "go away" if we don't acknowledge it's existence.

Before Lauren died, I thought I was protective of my children and believed and wanted to believe that I could protect them from harm, I Was wrong. You can protect your children from disease and illness by immunization and medicines. You can protect your children from harm and danger through education and caring. You can not protect your children from the ignorance, the irresponsibility or the lax standards with which or government regulates and processes meat inspection.

My only daughter LAUREN BETH RUDOLPH, age 6 years, 10 month, and 10 days died in my arms, from consequences of eating a little children's cheeseburger, laced with cow fecal contamination, it is not appropriate under any circumstances that I,( or anyone else), be put in a position to serve children, cooked or not, contaminated food, cow Dung is cow Dung no matter how one cooks it...(or irradiates it), it does not belong in our food, with the appropriate reporting laws in place, and enforced guidelines for the processing and manufacturing of our meat and poultry and their inspection lines, our children's lives will not be at the expense of lax issues.

I am writing to you today, to ask for your help, it is the last gift of love that her family and I can give Lauren, if we, as adults, have the courage to act now, we can do much to protect children everywhere. By having these issues in place , it is too late for my child, but it will not be too late for your children!

Seven days before Christmas, 1992, Lauren had a hamburger at a fast food restaurant in San Diego. Two Days later Lauren did not feel well. complaining of a headache and a upset stomach, she came to me for a hug and reassurance. I gave her some Tylenol and held her until she slept.

Two days later, Lauren became increasingly nauseous and the day after that it turned into diarrhea. By nightfall it had advanced to bloody diarrhea and stomach cramping, so severe that we could no longer treat this as "common flu symptoms". The doctor was called and shortly thereafter Lauren was taken to the emergency room at one of our better known and respected hospitals. There, we were greeted by a few questions, endless waiting, a minimum number of perfunctory tests, and the overall feeling that the health care providers thought we were overreacting.., they attempted to reassure us.

They did not test for E.coli O157:H7 - we were told to just see her pediatrician when his office opened in a few hours. They would be expecting us, when she was released from the hospital, she was visibly weak and in great discomfort and had to be carried out to the car.

That was Christmas Eve morning. We took Lauren to her pediatrician. They too thought that she just had the flu and recommended that she be taken to the children's Hospital in San Diego by early afternoon if she did not stabilize. Lauren was admitted to the hospital at 2:45 p.m.. that afternoon.

After collapsing in the entrance of the hospital I carried her to a wheelchair while her Dad registered her and her brother tried to reassure her. Lauren suffered from violent cramping and excessively bloody and frequent diarrhea. After her vital signs were monitored, we were told that Lauren was a very sick little girl, within the short span of three hours, she went from a regular hospital room where parents can stay overnight with their children. Then to multiple test sites, to specialists appearing in and out of her room. There were more tests and finally "the special care unit" of where she had round the clock doctors and nurses monitoring her every breath and beat of her heart. Lauren's vital signs, bloody diarrhea and the pain and agony of the failing of her little body became uncontrollably worse, the seriousness of her condition, becoming crystal clear to all of us..,especially Lauren. we returned Christmas morning, her condition worsening, pain still increasing and large quantities of powerful painkillers totally ineffective. Lauren's Christmas Present was a Barium test to see if an appendectomy would be needed, we all drew a huge sigh of relief when they decided her appendix was not affected in this torrent taking over her increasingly frail little body.

That evening we spent Christmas night reading her Christmas stories, helping her open a few presents until she became to weak to do so, and watching her eat a dinner of ice chips every fifteen minutes. That evening when we got home we decided not to open our presents until we could do it as a family, so we would wait until Lauren got home . Later on that evening, I went upstairs to just sit for a few moments in Lauren's room. Nothing could have prepared me for what I had found. Lauren had left "Santa" a note. It said "DEAR SANTA, I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD. PLEASE MAKE ME WELL FOR CHRISTMAS. LOVE LAUREN "

The next morning, I walked into Lauren's room , her father standing by her bedside with tears in his eyes, she was tossing and turning, her condition declining rapidly... Lauren had been crying out to her father, "I'm going to die.., I know I'm going to die!" , I took her hand quickly and told her "she was going to be okay. We would not let anything happen to her." An hour and a half later, Lauren had a massive heart attack at age six. All I could do was to stand there and watch the cardiac unit trying to revive her. Lauren had three heart attacks all together. All her main organs were failing one by one and she had signs of little, to no brain activity. Lauren was on a life support system.

On the morning of December 28th ,1992, we .., her family ..,were left to make the decision of taking Lauren off of the life support system that had become her connection to life, as we know it. As I held Lauren and as the last breath of life went out of her body.., I could feel a sense of my life's breath leave mine as well..........

The first time Lauren had been tested for E.coli O157:H7, was at her autopsy.

Because California has no mandatory reporting law for E.coli O157:H7, we would not know for another month after her death that Lauren would mark the beginning of the PACIFIC WEST COAST OUTBREAK or the Jack And The Box Epidemic.

We think there may well have been other cases of E.coli as much as a month before Lauren died. But we will never know for sure without the knowledge a state Reporting Law provides our community and outlying areas.

Having this knowledge a month before Lauren's death could have made a big difference to Lauren!

Lauren became infected with E.coli O157:H7 28 days before the announcement of the "Known" beginning of the Pacific west coast outbreak in Seattle. The key word here is "known".

Ask the people in Seattle, if a California State Reporting Law for E.coli would have made a difference to the over SOD taken ill and 3 known deaths?

When Lauren died three years ago, there were only 11 reporting states. Now there are 38, California is still not one of them. Repercussions from E.coli are far reaching.

So many survivors of this evil illness face tremendous lifelong complications. Kidney and Pancreatic transplants; the threat of AIDS from transfusions; infertility, learning disabilities, diabetes, lung damage, one survivor no longer has a lining around his heart. He is a teenager. Another faces a future of needing 'round the clock medical care. And she is only nine. And yet still another faced five surgeries in one years time to repair damage to her colon and intestinal area.. .An incredibly invasive procedure, she is 18. Ask her if this is what she envisioned her junior and senior year in High school to hold for her? I think not!

A year and a half ago, I testified before a senate sub-committee on foodborne illness. At that time, I shared many concerns, one of these concerns, was the possibility of an outbreak of E.coli O157:H7 caused from food served at hot lunch program in one of our elementary schools, in November of 1994, this was no longer a scenario. This became a reality, in New Mexico, 20 children in a elementary school were hospitalized with E.coli O157:H7 poisoning and many others taken ill. They found the culprit to be "Hot Beef Sticks or Beef on a Stick ". The hospitalized children were very sick. This time they were very lucky. No one died.

We should not be naive enough to count on "Luck" to solve this problem Escherichia coli or E.coli O157:H7 as it is known to most of us, only through awareness, education and needed change in areas of processing and manufacturing, and line as well as plant inspections of our meat and poultry industry can we effectively begin to make a difference. This needs to be coupled with each state's Reporting law. Because with Reportability, there is Traceability, and with that comes Accountability. With these issues in place, there also comes Preventability. Doesn't it stand to reason if you can't cure some - thing so insidious, the least one could do would be to "prevent" it? it sickens me to think that Lauren's death could have been preventable if these issues had been in place But this , unfortunately, is fact.

My Daughter was buried in her Christmas dress, with her Father's Purple Heart pinned to her collar, it wasn't suppose to happen this way...I can't give Lauren back her life. But I can make a difference for her, we all can make that difference on behalf of families everywhere!

Thank you.

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