Europe's E. coli outbreak
A farmer harvests cucumbers at a greenhouse on June 1, 2011 in Algarrobo, near Malaga, as Madrid threatened to sue German officials who initially warned that the virulent bacteria, which has already killed 18 in Germany and one in Sweden, was borne by cucumbers imported from Spain before correcting their findings.
A lab technician holds a bacteria culture that shows a positive infection of enterohemorrhagic E. coli, also known as the EHEC bacteria, from a patient at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf on June 2, 2011 in Hamburg, Germany.
Fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes and cucumbers, are for sale at an outdoor mini market in Moscow, on June 2, 2011. Russia banned on June 2 the import of fresh vegetables from European Union countries because of a deadly bacteria scare, as Germany kept up the hunt for the source of the bug that has killed 18 people.
A lab technician prepares a bacteria culture with a sample of stool taken from a patient possibly suffering from enterohemorrhagic E. coli, also known as the EHEC bacteria, at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf on June 2, 2011 in Hamburg, Germany.
A nurse cares for a patient infected with the virulent E. coli bacteria and undergoing dialysis treatment at an intensive care unit of Hamburg's UKE university clinic on June 1, 2011.
Employees of the Fontana market gardening company use a machine to sort freshly cropped cucumbers at a production hall in Manschnow, eastern Germany, on June 1, 2011. Spain threatened to sue the northern German city of Hamburg for damages after it pointed to Spanish cucumbers as the source of a fatal outbreak of enterohamorrhagic E. coli.
European Union agriculture ministers meet on May 31, 2011 for an Agriculture Council meeting in Debrecen to discuss a deadly bacteria outbreak that was initially suspected of stemming from contaminated cucumbers.
In this handout photo provided by the Helmholtz Center for Research on Infectious Diseases an EHEC bacteria is visible on May 30, 2011 in Berlin, Germany.Handout/Getty Images