Chlorinated Water Kills Germs on Fruit.

• Position: Brief Article

Washing strawberries with chlorinated water significantly cuts levels of bacteria and viruses that indicate possible contamination by animal or human wastes, according to a study by Mark Sobsey, professor of environmental microbiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and graduate student Michael J. Casteel. It showed that, after five minutes' exposure to water containing 10 parts per million of chlorine, between 90 and 99% of the disease-causing contaminants had disappeared.

"Contaminated produce has become an important source of foodborne disease in the United States and worldwide," Sobsey points out. "Many produce commodities that could become contaminated with human and animal wastes are eaten raw and unprocessed."

Raspberries, strawberries, lettuce, and basil leaves have caused outbreaks of food-borne viral and parasitic diseases such as gastroenteritis and infectious hepatitis. In the spring of 1997, for example, contaminated strawberries, distributed through U.S. Department of Agriculture-sponsored school lunch programs, caused an outbreak of infectious hepatitis A that sickened more than 150 children and school workers in Calhoun County, Mich.

"Our work is important because it demonstrates for the first...