ABSTRACT
The National Food Safety Initiative of May 1997 (Anonymous, 1997) refers repeatedly to manure management and implies that the use of animal manure in vegetable crop production constitutes a hazard to consumer health. Indeed, raw produce has been the vehicle in a considerable number of foodborne disease outbreaks in the U.S. (Beuchat, 1998), and most of the disease agents involved have been zoonotic infectious agents (agents that cause disease in humans but are usually of animal origin). If this is true, those who work in vegetable-growing fields to which manure is applied should be at greater risk, though little has been done to test this hypothesis (Coia et al., 1998). The zoonotic agents of greatest concern are Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Cryptosporidium parvum. These are shed, under certain circumstances, in the manure of food animals. The source animals are generally healthy, although mild diarrhea may sometimes be seen.
