Avian deaths in Australia not bird flu

SYDNEY, Australia - Wildlife authorities investigating why thousands of birds fell from the sky over a town in remote southwestern Australia have ruled out infectious diseases but are no closer to figuring out what killed them, a state official said Friday.

Around 5,000 birds have been found dead in Esperance, Western Australia, since mid-December, according to Nigel Higgs, spokesman for the state's Department of Environment and Conservation.

The birds were mostly nectar- and insect-eating species, although some seagulls also have been found, Higgs said in a telephone interview from his office in the Western Australia capital, Perth.

Pathologists at the Western Australia Department of Agriculture examined several of the carcasses, and have ruled out the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus and other infectious diseases.

"It may be an environmental toxin. It may be an agricultural or industrial toxin. We just can't be specific," Higgs said.

Further tests were being done on the dead birds, and Higgs said that it would be at least another week before pathologists have any more information on the mysterious deaths. Meanwhile, the reports of dead birds were waning, he said.

Michelle Crisp was one of the first residents of Esperance to report the dead birds.

She told The Australian newspaper earlier this week that she normally had hundreds of birds on her property, but she and a neighbor had counted 80 dead birds in one day.

"It went to the point where we had nothing, not a bird," she was quoted as saying. "It was like a moonscape, just horrible."

Earlier this week, authorities discovered 63 dead birds in a section of downtown Austin, Texas, and temporarily shut down the area. Officials are awaiting lab results to determine the cause of the deaths.

Landslide on Indonesian island kills 16

JAKARTA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A landslide triggered by heavy rains killed 16 people on a remote Indonesian island and a further 10 were missing, a health department official said on Friday.

More than 60 houses and two churches were damaged in the landslide on Sangihe island late on Thursday, Christian Tilla, chief of the health department of North Sulawesi province, said.

At least five people were injured, he told Reuters by text message.

Landslides occur frequently in Indonesia, where tropical downpours can quickly soak hillsides and deforestation often means there is little vegetation to hold the soil.

Sangihe is in the sea between Manado, the North Sulawesi capital 2,200 km (1,400 miles) northeast of Jakarta, and Mindanao, a southern island of the Philippines.

Tilla said bad weather was hampering efforts to send aid and body bags to the remote area.

The local telecommunications office had been flooded, he said, making contact with the island difficult.

Officials track E. coli strain to California

WASHINGTON - Contaminated California-grown lettuce was the possible source of the E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 80 people late last year at Taco John's restaurants in two states, health officials said Friday.

State and federal investigators said they have matched the strain of the bacteria associated with the outbreak to two samples taken from dairy farms in California's Central Valley. The farms are located near lettuce fields, the Food and Drug Administration said.

Investigators continue to study whether bacteria-laden manure from the dairy farms could have contaminated the nearby lettuce-growing areas, the FDA said. The FDA said other sources of contamination were possible.

The outbreak sickened about 81 people who had eaten at Taco John's restaurants in Minnesota and Iowa in November and December. Among those sickened, 26 were hospitalized. There were no deaths.

The Taco John's outbreak occurred at roughly the same time as a separate and more widely publicized outbreak of food poisoning that sickened 70 patrons of Taco Bell restaurants in the Northeast. Though E. coli-contaminated iceberg lettuce was the likely culprit behind both outbreaks, the two are not thought to be linked.

Friday's announcement also marks the second time in recent months that investigators have suggested Californian cattle or dairy operations as the source of contamination of produce grown on close-by fields. Bacteria tracked by wild pigs from a cattle ranch in California's Salinas Valley onto nearby spinach fields likely sparked an E. coli outbreak last year that sickened more than 200 people and killed three.

Taco John's spokesman Brian Dixon said the Cheyenne, Wyo., company had suspended purchases from the produce company that had supplied the three restaurants linked to the outbreak. The company also is in discussions with its other suppliers to do more testing of irrigation water and possibly to hold shipments of produce until samples can be tested for contamination, Dixon added.

The recent spate of food-poisoning cases includes two salmonella outbreaks blamed on fresh tomatoes that made about 400 people sick in October and November.

The FDA said Friday it would step up its produce-safety efforts, including consideration of new regulations. The regulatory agency also plans to hold public meetings to discuss ways of improving the safety of fresh produce.

And in Congress, Democrats in both the Senate and House plan to hold food-safety hearings in the coming months.