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.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
