’20/20′ segment to feature local E. coli tragedy
North County Times – Escondido,CA,USA
That’s when he got involved with the then-Leucadia-based Safe Tables Our
Priority, or STOP, an organization that creates awareness of E. coli. …

ENCINITAS —- Rainer Mueller said he continues sharing the story of his son’s death from E. coli poisoning in hopes that it may help others avoid the same tragedy that struck his family 13 years ago.

That desire was part of the reason Mueller agreed to be interviewed for a two-hour special on food safety, which airs at 9 tonight on ABC’s “20/20.”

Mueller, a computer analyst for the city of Encinitas, said he also wanted to talk about food irradiation, a method of decontaminating food that he believes is the answer to food safety concerns.

“I tell my story and let people know what’s happened. From that, people can make the correct decision,” said Mueller, adding that “if enough people become outraged by what’s happened, they can really effect a change.”

When his son, Eric, was 13 years old, Mueller said he became violently sick with an illness that his doctors struggled to diagnose.

Since E. coli wasn’t well known in 1993, Mueller said he didn’t understand what caused his son’s death until afterward.

A few months later, he said he thought he found the answer by searching his son’s symptoms on the internet. Everything he found pointed to E. coli, he said, and his suspicions were soon confirmed by a leading expert, he said.

That’s when he got involved with the then-Leucadia-based Safe Tables Our Priority, or STOP, an organization that creates awareness of E. coli.

In 1994, he joined the group’s board of directors and was elected its president two years later.

With the organization, he helped organize a symposium in Washington, D.C., in 1995 to alert Congress to the fact that the food inspection laws then in place were written a century ago. The following year, he was asked to be part of the group that rewrote the regulations.

Mueller said his endeavors earned him an invitation to the White House to meet then-President Clinton, and a later invitation to watch as the president signed the new regulations into law.

Although he had to decline the last invitation, he said he was amazed at how much one organization —- Safe Tables —- could accomplish.

“We pulled together and changed the meat inspection laws in this country against some of the largest lobbying groups,” he said.

In 1998, Mueller established his own organization, Eric’s ECHO, to assist and educate victims and families on E. coli poisoning. Since then, the organization has become “one of the pre-eminent Web sites for E. coli information around the world,” he said.

While Mueller said he is pleased with some improvements in food safety since his son’s death, he believes that the United States still has a long way to go before eradicating the problem.

He said he has been working to promote irradiation, which can complement the most recognized step to safety —- cleanliness.

He said the irradiation process uses electron beams, those used to broadcast images on a television, to eliminate “all living material in food.”

He believes this method is important for meats and produce, because “you can scrub all you want on the outside of it, but it is showing up on the inside of the products.”

He said he believes information, which he provides through Eric’s ECHO and mentions during the “20/20″ interview, is the only way to alter public perception.

For more information on Eric’s ECHO, go to www.ericsecho.org.