My nephew cultures B. Cepacia, and he started culturing it when he was about 9 years old. At that age, kids don't really eat too many onions...unless it happens to be cooked in something else that they are eating.
Our CF doctor (my nephew and my daughters all see the same doctor) says there is no way to tell where he caught the cepacia. He never even mentioned onions as a possibilty. I do know that the bacteria was an ingredient used in sprays that, at one time, was used on crops to help control, I thought, root rotting or something. And then the farm land would be infected with the bacteria. They have since stopped using cepacia in the sprays, to the best of my knowledge.
We can only guess that my nephew, Dalton, caught the cepacia from playing in the dirt where he lived at the time...my sister and her hubby lived in the middle of a lot of farm land, as did her in-laws. MAYBE that farm land was at one time treated with sprays that MAY have contained cepacia.
OR, the doctor said he could had caught it just from going to the grocery store. He said the vegies that are 'sprinkled' can contain all kinds of bacteria...that could be harmful. There is just no way to know.
And as of right now, there are only 4 cases of CF patients who are positive with Cepacia seen in the CF clinics here locally, and after 'fingerprinting' the bacteria, none of the strains are the same. Meaning that the bacteria was not spred within the clinic or person to person. Each of the people acquired it someplace else.
I would let my girls eat onions, as long as they were not rotten. But they don't like them. Althugh they do like onion rings. I let them eat them.
My kids love buffets! I can't stand them. But they eat so much and love to have all the options. But I can see where there would be risk of bacteria growth. If I was worried about the cleanliness or the temperature that food was kept, I would definately not let them eat at a buffet. My girls like to help plant flowers during the summer. But when there hands get dirty, they wash them...they don't eat the dirt though.
Does your daughter cultured Cepacia, or are you just nervous about it? I do know that it scares me tremendously. I worry about it all the time because of my nephew. I worry that Dalton will be at my parents house and cough on something and then a few days later my girls go there to visit, and touch the same thing...
We try to be careful and there is a Lysol that does say it kills B. Cepacia, and my parents, my sister and myself all have cans of it!!
There are just little things that we have to think twice about, like my girls riding in my sisters car...probably NOT a good idea, even without Dalton in the car.
I probably gave you way more information than what you were asking.
This is just a subject that is close to my heart.
