On August 22, 2000, Marion County Health investigators contacted the Oregon Health Department to report that a number of County residents were suffering from E. coli O157:H7. Three days later Wendy’s International, Inc voluntarily closed its Salem restaurant. The findings by the Marion Health Department made the link to this Wendy’s restaurant clear:
The matched case-control study implicated Wendy’s Restaurant at 2375 Commercial Street SE in Salem as the source of this outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infection. Molecular sub-typing linked the first nine cases to eight additional cases, including one whose only exposure to Wendy’s was a [Wendy’s] restaurant in Tualatin, Oregon.Continue Reading Wendy’s E. coli Outbreak

On July 17, 2002, Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) contacted the Washington State Department of Health (WDOH) to report a cluster of diarrheal illnesses among a group of teenaged girls who had recently attended a drill team dance camp at Eastern Washington University (EWU). Laboratory tests conducted the WDOH Public Health Laboratory would later confirm the illnesses to be E. coli O157:H7 with an indistinguishable PFGE pattern. Subsequently, SRHD became aware of additional cases of E. coli O157:H7 with the same PFGE pattern that had no association with dance camp and EWU. This led to a broader investigation by a number of public health agencies.
Continue Reading July 2002 Spokane Produce E.Coli Outbreak

Late in the day on Friday, August 29, 2003, staff in the Communicable Disease (CD) section at the St. Clair County Health Department (SCCHD) received a telephone call from Brett Hellinga, a Sangamon County (Illinois) resident, who reported that he, his roommate and fiance (Jamie Eastwood Hellinga), and a friend from Rantoul, Illinois (Katie Reed) had recently traveled to the St. Clair area to attend a wedding in St. Louis. All three were now experiencing bloody diarrhea and had gone to emergency rooms in their respective hometowns for treatment. Laboratory results were pending. CD staff notified the SCCHD Environmental Health section.
Continue Reading The Habaneros E. Coli Outbreak

In late June of 2002, residents of Monroe County began to fall ill with Salmonella infections. As their illnesses were confirmed by laboratory testing, hospitals and doctors began reporting the illnesses to the Monroe County Health Department. By June 22, the total number of confirmed cases had reached 17. According to the Health Department, the Salmonella cases were linked to multiple events at the Brook-Lea Country Club (“Brook-Lea”) between June 1 and June 17.
Continue Reading Brook-Lea Country Club Salmonella Outbreak

On May 12, 2004, the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory identified a cluster of five patients infected with Salmonella Enteritidis (SE). The isolates of these patients stool cultures were found to be genetically indistinguishable through the use of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The five patients were from four Oregon counties and had onsets of illness ranging from February to April, 2004. Further investigation would lead to documentation of at least 29 patients in 12 states and Canada with matching SE isolates, since at least as far back as September, 2003. After a thorough investigation by local, state, and federal officials, the illnesses were definitively linked to raw almonds distributed by Paramount Farms. The investigation led to the recall of roughly 18 million pounds of Paramount Farms raw almonds.
Continue Reading Paramount Farms Salmonella Outbreak

Pennsylvania State health officials first learned of a potential HAV outbreak from emergency room doctors in Beaver County, who reported an unusually high number of hepatitis A cases in late October, 2003. Investigators from the health department began investigating the people who had fallen ill, and determined that the common thread for all was having eaten at the Chi-Chi’s restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall. Once the department isolated the restaurant as the probable source of the outbreak, Chi-Chi’s closed the restaurant voluntarily and it remained closed for a number of weeks.
Ultimately, over 650 confirmed cases, both primary and secondary, were linked to this outbreak. The victims included at least 13 employees of the Chi-Chi’s restaurant, and numerous residents of six other states. Three persons died as a consequence of their hepatitis A illness. In addition, more than 9,000 persons who had eaten at the restaurant during the period of potential exposure, or who had been exposed to ill persons, obtained immune globulin shots as protection against the hepatitis A virus.Continue Reading Chi-Chi’s Beaver Valley Mall Hepatitis-A Outbreak

On June 30, 2002, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (“FSIS”) announced the recall of 354,200 pounds of ground beef manufactured at the ConAgra Beef Company (“ConAgra”) plant in Greeley, Colorado. According to ConAgra’s Vice President Jim Herlihy, “one sample of the product tested positive [for E. coli O157:H7], so what ConAgra did was recall the entire day’s production.” The contaminated ground beef was produced at the plant on May 31, thirty days prior to the recall, and was distributed nationally to retailers and institutions.
On July 12, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (“CDPHE”) disclosed that 17 Colorado residents had been infected with E. coli O157:H7. No source of the infections was identified at the time. Several other cases were subsequently reported in neighboring states. Three days later, on July 15, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) announced that the strain of E. coli O157:H7 that had infected the 17 sickened individuals was genetically indistinguishable from the strain of the recalled ConAgra beef.Continue Reading July 2002 ConAgra E. coli O157:H7 Recall and Outbreak

In early July 2004, while conducting routine surveillance, Pennsylvania Department of Health (PDOH) personnel noted an increase in reported Salmonella Group D infections occurring in state residents. Salmonella is a reportable disease in Pennsylvania and laboratories throughout the state are asked to submit isolates to the PDOH Public Health Laboratory (PHL) for serotyping. By July 9 the PDOH PHL had serotyped more than twelve Salmonella isolates as Salmonella javiana, a substantially higher number than the one or two cases of Salmonella javiana reported to the PDOH in a typical month. Local health departments and area laboratories were asked to promptly report all cases of Salmonella to the PDOH.
Continue Reading Sheetz Salmonella Outbreak