Analysis Of The Alfalfa Outbreak
The next step we took was generating a hypothesis and determining what a case should be defined as. For this outbreak a case was defined as diarrhea, more than three bowel movements a day, and/or abdominal cramps in residents of Michigan with onset of illness between June and July of 1997. Seven interviews were performed in order to create a hypothesis and questions asked in these interviews were restaurants visited, contact with farm animals, consumption of beef, meal by meal listing of foods, clinical data, water exposures, and travel outside of the state. The interviews revealed that most cases had consumed alfalfa sprouts in the week before they became ill. To test the hypothesis on the source of outbreak we conducted a case-control study