ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603060058
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on March 7, 1996.
Scott Austin of Prices Fork tested positive for the E. coli 0157:H7
bacteria last year but hie never fell seriously ill like his infant
daughter, Erica, did. Such infections usually affect the very young and
old the most. Also, Austin is Mikki Dailey's stepfather. Those facts
were incorrectly reported in a Wednesday article in the New River
Current.
A Prices Fork 9-year-old journeyed to Washington with her family Monday to speak out with big-name Democratic critics of an effort by congressional Republicans to overhaul government regulations.
Mikki Dailey and her family traveled to the U.S. Capitol to take part in an Environmental Information Center news conference critical of the "regulatory rollback" bill that is part of the Newt Gingrich-inspired "Contract with America."
The bill got bogged down last year in the Senate but a revised version is back before Congress this year.
Mikki's point had to do with regulation of federal meat inspection methods. Her father, Scott Austin, and 16-month-old sister, Erica, fell seriously ill in September with E. coli 0157:H7, a bacteria carried in undercooked meat that killed four restaurant customers in the Pacific Northwest in 1993.
The Austins recovered, and never determined exactly how they ingested the bacteria, said Renet Austin, Nikki's mother, who like her daughter, also became sick last fall but didn't test positive for the bacteria.
"She said she can't vote because she's too young, but if she could she would vote for someone who would make our food safe," Renet Austin said Tuesday after returning to their Montgomery Farms home.
The point of the Austins' appearance was to show the effect of deregulation on everyday people. An 8-year-old boy from Northern Virginia whose severe asthma is triggered by air pollution and a Pennsylvanian whose son died in a wreck caused by the drug use of a train engineer also spoke.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., shared the spotlight.
Renet Austin said she became concerned about the regulatory reform effort at the federal level after feeling that she'd been "pulling teeth" to find out if her family was part of any type of E. coli outbreak in the New River Valley.
She learned that there's no requirement that hospitals and physicians report suspected E. coli infections to the local Health Department office. Instead, doctors may report it voluntarily.
"Mrs. Austin is right," confirmed Dr. Jody Hershey, director of the New River Health District. "At the present time we do not have mandatory reporting as we do with some of the other diseases."
Hershey said the Health Department is pursuing making it a requirement, at the state level, but wasn't sure how far off that would be. A Richmond official in charge of that effort could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Early notification of health officials is important so the department can launch an epidemiological investigation into the source of the transmission. That can help prevent other people from getting sick, Hershey said.
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