Hepatitis A in Foodservice Workers

Posted on March 2, 2011 by PritzkerLaw

About 12 percent of foodservice workers who were surveyed about their work attendance said they had gone to work while sick with diarrhea or vomiting -- a rate that Penn State University professors said was alarming. The survey was published in the February 2011 edition of the Journal of Food Protection and summarized by the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.

In the summer of 2009, a worker at the McDonald's restaurant in Milan, Illinois, attended work over a period of days while she was sick with Hepatitis A. The exposure caused a Hepatitis outbreak of diarrheal illness, Hep A,  that sickened at least 30 people. Scores of others may have avoided illness by obtaining a hepatitis A vaccine at an impromptu clinic set up by public health leaders in Illinois. It was a painful reminder that foodborne pathogens such as Hepatitis A, Shigella and Norovirus are often spread by sick workers to restaurant patrons through food.

National food safety law firm PritzkerOlsen, P.A., represented victims in the Illinois Hepatitis A outbreak and has been involved in other outbreaks around the country where infected foodservice workers have spread illness by coming into work. 

In the Milan, Ill., McDonald's case, the Hepatitis A carrier potentially exposed up to 10,000 people. It was powerful evidence for restaurant owners and managers to adopt and strictly enforce policies to keep sick workers at home. Not all restaurants are aware of the danger and in some cases a restaurant may be so busy that they order a sick person to come to work anyway.
  
The Journal article also said that economic hardships on workers cause some to ignore policies to stay at home because foodservice jobs aren't highly paid and health care benefits aren't in the cards for many independent restaurant workers. When managers do become aware of a problem, they need to contact the local health department and the worker should be tested to see if they are a carrier of a foodborne pathogen.  If so, there are protocols to follow in terms of keeping the worker away from the restaurant until consecutive stool samples test negative for the organism.
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Infected Workers Spread Hep A at McDonald's in Milan Illinois

Posted on December 3, 2009 by PritzkerLaw

Food poisoning at the McDonald's restaurant in Milan, Illinois, caused the McDonald's Hep A outbreak this summer that sickened at least 34 people, including 14 who were hospitalized. The outbreak also prompted the distribution of prophylaxis to more than 5,000 people who ate at the Milan McDonald's to stop them from becoming ill.

That was the conclusion of an outbreak summary posted Thursday by the Illinois Department of Public Health Division of Infectious Disease.

The official report said Hepatitis A was spread at the restaurant by two infected workers who did not wear gloves and handled bread that was not later cooked. Health officials found hand-washing deficient in more than half of the 48 Milan McDonald's employees who were evaluated for their techniques after the July 11-August 10 outbreak. Hand-washing issues also were noted in an April 2009 health inspection of the Milan McDonald's -- before the outbreak. 

 "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 report said.

National food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker said the results of the investigation are interesting, but predictable. Hep A outbreaks involving restaurants are all too common and they usually involve failure to train and supervise employees regarding proper hand washing.

"The underlying problem concerns the economics of fast food restaurants,'' Pritzker said. "Low paid workers who receive few if any benefits usually cannot afford to miss work. Sick workers handling food sold to the public is a prescription for disaster.''

The report said the first food handler at the restaurant contracted Hepatitis A by mid-June. Her dates at work, June 28-July 29, match the dates of onset of 28 illnesses in the outbreak. The second worker was diagnosed as carrying the disease on July 15 -- which was the same day health officials "advised'' the restaurant to close for cleaning and retraining after an inspection found "multiple'' health violations, the report said.

Of the 5,366 customers who received prophylaxis to reduce additional cases, 153 were residents of a nursing home. 

People who eat contaminated food during a Hep A outbreak develop the illness from 15 to 50 days (average 28-30 days) later. Persons are infectious from approximately one week before the first onset of symptoms to approximately two weeks after the onset of the first symptom or until one week after jaundice.

The 34 cases resided in Rock Island (18), Mercer (seven), Henry (two), Woodford (two), Warren (one) and Iowa (four). 

If you or someone you love was a victim of this outbreak, contact a Hepatitis A lawyer at Pritzker Olsen Attorneys toll-free at 1-888-377-8900. We are a national food safety law firm representing victims of food poisoning -- one of the few in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. Call to receive a free case consultation, or complete our online contact and information form on the side of this web page.

Based on this report and our own investigation, the McDonald's hepatitis outbreak was preventable and never should have happened.

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