“Sometime in April, nine customers at an Orange County restaurant got sick after eating lettuce laced with Escherichia coli, the deadly, dreaded bacterium better known as E. coli. The lettuce came from Amazing Coachella Inc. of Coachella, and their poisoned product also struck eaters in Canada, where the outbreak was a national story. The OC restaurant was the only other culprit; it closed for a couple of days, then opened, and that was that,” according to the OC Weekly.
Here’s the kicker – the Orange County Health Care Agency, which inspects restaurants and oversees food safety in Orange County, never “never revealed it to the public when the outbreak occurred, and it doesn’t want you to know about it—now or ever.”
That is simply astounding. It is highly unprofessional and dangerous to not announce E. coli outbreaks right away, so that members of the public can identify if they were possibly infected. This bacteria can be deadly to young people and the very old, or infirm.
“Deanne Thompson, public information officer for the OC Health Care Agency, says naming the restaurant now (it was not named then either) would “not serve a useful purpose,” according to Food Safety News.
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