On September 12, 2005 Public Health Seattle King County received an unusual number of E. coli O157:H7 reports. Case interviews by county investigators subsequently revealed that three unrelated residents of King County and one Pierce County resident had all eaten at the same Olive Garden restaurant in Federal Way on September 1, 2005. All four […]
On June 9, 2005 FSIS issued Recall Notification Report 026-2005, announcing the recall of approximately 63,580 pounds of frozen ground beef patties and meatballs manufactured by Murry’s Inc., a Lebanon, Pennsylvania company. See Recall Notification Report 026-2005, Exhibit No. 1. The recall was deemed a Class I recall and was initiated after the New Jersey […]
On September 7, 2005 Rebecca O’Donnell, Infection Control Nurse at the Albany Medical Center Hospital, informed Marcia Fabiano at the Albany County Health Department (ACHD) that Erika Boehlke was hospitalized at AMCH with a diagnosis of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS). Preliminary laboratory testing of Erika’s stool had been conducted at St. Peter’s Hospital, and tests […]
On September 14, 2005 the Concord Hospital laboratory submitted an E. coli O157:H7 isolate to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (NHDHHS) Public Health Laboratory (PHL) for confirmatory testing. The isolate had been cultured from a stool sample obtained from Hercules Tsirovakas. The next day the Communicable Disease Control and Surveillance section […]
E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks associated with lettuce or spinach, specifically the “pre-washed” and “ready-to-eat” varieties sold under various brand and trade names, are by no means a new phenomenon. In October 2003, 13 residents of a California retirement center were sickened and 2 died after eating E. coli-contaminated “pre-washed” spinach. In September 2003, nearly 40 […]
It has been one hundred years since the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, a book that brought sweeping changes to America’s slaughterhouses. Those changes, in the form of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, were prompted by the public’s disgust for the filth and dangerous working conditions in which our nation’s meat supply was then […]
The Wall Street Journal weighed in today on the FDA’s new safety guidelines for prepared produce. From the article: Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer who has sued Dole and other companies over outbreaks related to fresh-cut produce, said the FDA should focus more on outdoor areas, such as ground or surface water, than employee hygiene. […]
As the Monterey County Herald reported today, the Food and Drug Administration has issued its first set of safety guidelines for the way fresh-cut produce companies process bagged salad, apple slices and cut celery sticks. The release of the guidelines follows a scathing November letter in which the FDA urged fresh-cut producers to do more […]
Separating the Chaff from the Wheat: How to determine the strength of a foodborne illness claim – A paper presented at the May 2005 Defense Research Institute meeting on food liability, written by Bill Marler.
E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks associated with lettuce or spinach, specifically the “pre-washed” and “ready-to-eat” varieties sold under various brand and trade names, are by no means a new phenomenon. In October 2003, 13 residents of a California retirement center were sickened and 2 died after eating E. coli-contaminated “pre-washed” spinach. In September 2003, nearly 40 […]
As Jason Cato of the Tribune-Review reported today, checks should start arriving in a few weeks for nearly 5,000 people who claimed part of an $800,000 lawsuit settlement against Chi-Chi’s following a hepatitis A outbreak two years ago at a restaurant in Beaver County. From the article: Though nearly 10,000 people got shots to help […]
Don Hamilton, a Columbian staff writer, reported today that our firm will be representing two families victimized by the recent E. coli outbreak with an eye toward suing Dee Creek Farm, the farm that provided the raw milk that sickened their children. Eighteen people, 15 of them children ages 1 to 13, have been sickened […]
As the Associated Press reported today, nearly 5,000 people who had to get shots to ward off hepatitis A during a food-poisoning outbreak at a western Pennsylvania Chi-Chi’s restaurant two years ago will be mailed checks for $162.23 each next month. A federal judge in Delaware overseeing Chi-Chi’s bankruptcy signed off on the class-action settlement […]
Barbara LaBoe of The Daily News reported today that both the state and an unlicensed Woodland dairy may be sued on behalf of two children sick with E. coli. From the article: Parents of two of the children sickened after drinking unpasteurized milk from Dee Creek Farm asked Seattle lawyer Bill Marler to look into […]
On November 30, Jane Zhang of the Wall Street Journal wrote about the recent influx of trouble that has come from Americans eating their vegetables: More Americans are eating their vegetables. But the healthy trend comes with a risk: Illnesses traced to fresh produce are on the rise. Fruits and vegetables are now responsible for […]