Hepatitis with Your Happy Meal
A McDonald’s food handler in Milan, Illinois, was potentially serving Hepatitis A with every hamburger bun she touched while not wearing gloves to cover her improperly washed hands.
The result? Thirty-four confirmed cases of Hep A, including 14 people who were hospitalized this summer. Another 5,366 customers of the McDonald’s restaurant heeded a warning that stemmed from the outbreak by getting shots of prophylaxis to reduce their chances of infection. Up to 10,000 people were exposed to the disease.
Those are findings from the Illinois Department of Health report on the Milan McDonald’s hepatitis outbreak from June 11 through August 10. Not one, but two food handlers at the restaurant had Hepatitis A. The second one wasn’t diagnosed until July 15 — the day health officials “advised” closing the place for retraining and deep cleaning. But that worker also was handling bread while wearing no gloves.
From my experience handling hundreds of food poisoning cases for victims, Hep A outbreaks involving restaurants are all too common. They usually involve failure to train and supervise employees regarding proper hand washing — which the health department in Illinois substantiates happened in this case.
The report’s words, not mine: “If the first employee with hepatitis A had used proper hand washing technique while working the transmission of hepatitis A through food would not have occurred. ”
The underlying problem concerns the economics of fast food restaurants. Low paid workers who receive few if any benefits usually cannot afford to miss work. In this case, the first sick handler worked June 28-July 29 while she was infectious. Those dates match the dates of onset of 28 of the 34 confirmed illnesses.
Sick workers handling food sold to the public is a prescription for disaster.
School Lunch Risk Uncovered by USA Today
As a story this week in USA Today reminds us, the government has a “zero-tolerance” policy for the pathogens E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella in ground beef bound for schools via the national school lunch program. The program actually has a very good track record of keeping these pathogens away from our kids in school.
Why then — as the newspaper properly questions — did the program accept certain ground beef orders made by a supplier during a period this summer when the meat could have been contaminated with Salmonella?
It makes no sense and the government reply is feeble.
James Marsden, a professor of food safety and security at Kansas State University, is the voice of reason in this story. He said the decision put children at risk and there’s no question in my mind that it did.
The case revolves around the summer recall and ground beef Salmonella outbreak associated with the Fresno, California, plant of Beef Packers Inc., a subsidiary of food giant Cargill. The outbreak sickened at least 39 people in 11 states. Our firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, is representing one of the victims.
Here’s the gist of the USA Today story by reporters Blake Morrison, Peter Eisler and Anthony DeBarros:
Even as public health officials told residents to throw out recalled products from the Fresno plant, the federal government paid Beef Packers hundreds of thousands of dollars for almost 450,000 pounds of ground beef made from June 5 to June 23, the dates covered by the recall. Four orders were produced for the school lunch program during that period.
One tested positive for Salmonella Newport, the strain that prompted the recall and can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever and vomiting. That order — produced June 9 – was rejected by the government.
Because testing of samples from the three other orders of beef were Salmonella-free, the meat made for schools was not included in the recall, even though it was produced during the span of the recall.
Lawmakers and food safety experts told the paper that the three orders should have been rejected nonetheless. That’s because the tests that led the government to release the beef are inconsistent and often wrong, Marsden told the newspaper.
Government officials with the Agricultural Marketing Service, the arm of the USDA that runs the school lunch program, stood behind their decision. But the program’s administrator said the USDA “plans to initiate an independent review” of
its “testing procedures and process control requirements” next year.
Garbage Plant or Meat Warehouse?
After reading a story by Courthouse News about filthy conditions inside a Fort Worth, Texas, meat warehouse, you wonder if it was really just a garbage plant that contained animal flesh.
The discovery of conditions inside Halal Import Food Market’s warehouse happened after a Texas state trooper found 148 goat carcasses stacked inside Halal Import Food Market’s unrefrigerated van and ordered it to Halal’s warehouse to be inspected. En route, 102 dead goats and boxes of organs went missing.
According to a lawsuit filed by the State of Texas in Tarrant County Court, the state believes two supermarkets received the meats. The entire story is a food safety nightmare.
Again from Courthouse News, here’s how the complaint describes Halal’s warehouse: Filthy, with “dead birds and bird droppings on food products … live birds flying around warehouse and resting on food products,” trash piled 6 feet deep in places, “numerous dead rodents, numerous rodent droppings along with gnawed materials and debris,” meat rotting on a grinder, “various uncovered and exposed foods in direct contact with wet floor along with debris and trash in produce/dairy cooler,” and “cigarette butts, rotting fruit, peels, partially eaten chicken and other food” around the warehouse. The goat carcasses bore no stamps showing that they were from inspected sourced, and the carcasses in the van were touching “seat belts, peeling and fraying fabric overhead from van ceiling, and a rusty van floor.”
The story said Halal Import Food Market has been cited for food safety violations since 2001. Texas wants the contaminated food destroyed and fines of up to $25,000 per day from each defendant for each violation of safety regulations.
Er, isn’t this enough to shut the place down?
Wisconsin Issues Advisory Against Farm’s Milk
Pasteurization kills pathogens in raw milk that harbor the potential to create serious illness and death. We know this from science and human experience, including individual cases handled by our law firm.
But some people continue to believe that raw, unpasteurized milk is a healthier alternative and that pasteurization somehow damages milk’s nutritional value. How many raw milk outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria or Campylobacter are required to demonstrate the danger?
In the Dairy State itself — Wisconsin — the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has been vigilant in detecting milk problems. This week, the agency issued a press release warning consumers not to drink milk products carrying the brand name Blue Marble Family Farm because they may not be properly pasteurized.
The consumer alert was issued after laboratory tests from a routine inspection showed the presence of an active enzyme in Blue Marble milk that is normally destroyed by pasteurization. Blue Marble is a licensed on-farm bottling plant in Barneveld, Wisconsin.
The products covered in the advisory include whole milk, skim milk, chocolate milk, heavy whipping cream, half and half, buttermilk and eggnog in a variety of sizes. They have sell-by dates of Nov. 27 and later and are believed to be distributed primarily in southern Wisconsin, including the Madison area. At this time, food safety officials are unaware of any illnesses caused by the products.
Earlier this year in Wisconsin, the state reported a raw milk Campylobacter outbreak that sickened at least 35 people, including one who was hospitalized. That outbreak was associated with product from the Zinniker Family Farm in Elkhorn.
Here are facts from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that set the record straight on the raw milk debate:
- Raw milk DOES NOT kill dangerous pathogens by itself.
- Pasteurizing milk DOES NOT cause lactose intolerance and allergic reactions.
- Both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins.
- Pasteurization DOES NOT reduce milk’s nutritional value.
- Pasteurization DOES NOT mean that it is safe to leave milk out of the refrigerator for extended time.
- Pasteurization KILLS harmful bacteria and SAVES lives.
Technologists, FDA Collaborate on Tracebacks
A recent collaboration involving the Institute of Food Technologists and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is intended to improve product tracing in food production and distribution. That study, released in October 2009 and entitled Traceability (Product Tracing) in Food Systems, identified key data elements, use of electronic forms and standardized formats as a means to identify and track food products implicated in E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and other foodborne illness outbreaks. 
Traceability is an essential component of food safety regulation. Simply put, it is essential that every food’s supply chain (from farm to retail/foodservice outlet) be known, recorded and easily accessed. This allows for rapid detection of the source of foodborne illness outbreaks, removal of adulterated products from the marketplace, consumer warnings and identification of wrongdoers in product liability claims brought on behalf of foodborne illness survivors.
Unfortunately, the system of traceability in this country is fragmented and incomplete. For example, there is no standardized system for the identification and recording of key data elements (e.g. physical location at which the product was handled, lot numbers, amount of product manufactured or shipped, recipients of shipped products, etc.). In addition, there are no approved standardized formats and no record-keeping requirements for Critical Tracking Events (“CTEs” – instances in which a product is moved between premises, is transformed or is otherwise determined to be a point at which data capture is necessary to trace the product).
These deficiencies are well known and long-standing. They endanger consumers and make it difficult to hold wrongdoers accountable for the harms and losses they cause. As food safety lawyers involved in virtually every major outbreak of foodborne illness, we at Pritzker Olsen Attorneys believe the common sense recommendations in this report should be implemented without further delay.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
