Spanish cucumber

After days of angry recriminations that threatened to spark new inter-Europe trade wars, the German authorities conceded last night that Spanish cucumbers were not, after all, to blame for a mystery illness which has claimed the lives of 16 people and infected more than 1,200 others. And as Irish retailers removed Spanish organic cucumbers from their shelves, the search to find the source of the infection has been stepped up. Scientists said vegetables such as spinach or salads remained a likely cause because of animal manure used as fertiliser. The German state agriculture secretary Robert Kloos admitted that tests revealed that Spanish cucumbers did not carry the enterohaemorrhagic E coli (EHEC) -- an unusual, toxic strain of the common E col