When are E. coli bacteria bad for us?
Bacteria are somewhat like humans in that certain individual ones are not very nice. We know that some individual humans can be downright dangerous. Therefore, as there are individual humans, so too can different individuals exist among Escherichia coli bacteria. Some of these different strains of bacteria can be harmful to us. Each of us – given the assumption that a human is reading this information – is sort of a strain of the human species, sapiens. We are different because we are genetically different. Since an individual strain of E. coli may exist, this situation means that this particular strain of E. coli is genetically different from the vast majority of E. coli in our intestines. Otherwise, it would not be a different strain of this organism. If this E. coli strain happens to have genetic information for producing something harmful to us, then, we may be in trouble.
