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Cause of the Hepatitis A outbreak in Pennsylvania according to the PA health dept.
KDKA Radio 1020, Pittsburgh | 11/21/03

Posted on 11/21/2003 8:09:43 AM PST by Dane

According to a press conference by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Health, the cause of the Hepatitis A outbreak, that has so far infected 575 people and caused 3 deaths, came from green onions.

All those infected ate at a Chi-Chi's restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall located in Center Township, PA.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: hepatitis; hepatitisonions
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To: LibertarianLiz
I believe you are correct. And even if they don't "fertilize" with it, I doubt whether Mexico demands that their farmers provide porta-pottys for their laborers. Where they gonna go? On your salad ingredients.

It's not that they are consciously fertilizing with human waste, but that the water they are using to irrigate has human fecal matter in it.

81 posted on 11/21/2003 10:16:13 AM PST by Pa' fuera
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To: PLK
Actually, it's immigrants returning from Mexico after having been exposed to the hepatitis virus which is epidemic there, and then not washing their hands after using the bathroom.

Another thing is that Mexicans do not put their used toilet paper down the toilet, because there is not sufficient water pressure to push the paper down to the sewer. Therefore, they put their used toilet paper in the trash. When they come to the US, they think our plumbing systems are like theirs, and do the same as they do at home.

If you go to any public restroom frequented by large numbers of Mexican new arrivals, you're going to find the trash full of used TP. And this is the same restroom where the employees are going to the bathroom and washing their hands.

82 posted on 11/21/2003 10:25:53 AM PST by Pa' fuera
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To: Dane
a sick individual decided to put his/her poop in an empty formula 409 bottle, mix with water, spray on a carton of green onions.

Not even remotely necessary to go to all that trouble. All that's needed to pass on the hepatitis virus is for a hepatitis carrier to NOT wash their hands after using the bathroom and then handle the onions. The hepatitis virus is VERY hardy, unlike the AIDS virus which is quite fragile.

83 posted on 11/21/2003 10:27:40 AM PST by PLK
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To: Pa' fuera
It's not that they are consciously fertilizing with human waste, but that the water they are using to irrigate has human fecal matter in it.

From the information we know so far, the Hepatitis A infections seem to come from specific targets, i.e restaurants, where the green onions are delivered to.

It is easy to blame Mexican farming but looking at the facts, Mexican farms ship thousands of tons of green onions, if they were all infected, many more people would have gotten sick, and the infection couldn't be traced to a single source or restaurant.

JMO, it seems to be a targeted attack, either by a deranged individual or small scale terrorism.

84 posted on 11/21/2003 10:27:55 AM PST by Dane
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To: PLK
Clarification: I did not mean to imply by the comparison to the AIDS virus that this particular form of hepatitis virus is blood-borne, it is NOT. Just wanted to point out the hardiness of it.
85 posted on 11/21/2003 10:30:40 AM PST by PLK
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To: PLK
Not even remotely necessary to go to all that trouble. All that's needed to pass on the hepatitis virus is for a hepatitis carrier to NOT wash their hands after using the bathroom and then handle the onions. The hepatitis virus is VERY hardy, unlike the AIDS virus which is quite fragile

Well from the PA health dept. it didn't come from any of the employees. They said that due to the appearance and timing of their symptoms, they were ruled out. Not my words, the PA health dept.'s.

So it basically goes down to the green onions, for the sake of "official" arguement. Again the question arises, why only one restaurant in a metropolitan area is the source of the Hepatitis A?

JMO, it was one deranged individual who infected the onions, with who knows what.

The term "deranged" would include someone who has decided to wage small scale terrorism and is a follower of islam.

86 posted on 11/21/2003 10:39:51 AM PST by Dane
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To: Sabertooth
According to a Slate article


87 posted on 11/21/2003 11:21:57 AM PST by flamefront (To the victor go the oils. No oil or oil-money for islamofascist weapons of mass annihilation.)
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To: All
Looks like this thread has run out of steam, but I still contend it was an employee of the infected Chi-Chi's or someone along the chain of delivery of the green onions who purposefully contaminated the green onions.

The reason being that only one location(the Chi-Chi's) being the source of the infection. If a field of green onions in Mexico had been infected, common sense would tell you that many other restaurants would have been infected since all those green onions in that field did not go to one restaurant.

88 posted on 11/21/2003 3:12:25 PM PST by Dane
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To: Dane
but I still contend it was an employee of the infected Chi-Chi's or someone along the chain of delivery of the green onions who purposefully contaminated the green onions.

It is clearly not a Chi Chi's employee. In the past several months there have been 3 distinct outbreaks of Hepatitis A linked to green onions. One was in GA/NC, another in TN, and the third in PA. In all cases the virus was isolted and partially sequenced. The sequencing showed that all isolates from a given outbreak were identical and the three diferent sets of isolates were closely related to each other. A case control analysis indicated that the source was greeen onions, and the genetics of the virus indicated that although each strain was unique, each was closely related to a strain commonly found in Mexico as well as travelers returning from Mexico.

At the end of 1998, the same thing happened in Ohio. 43 patrons contracted Hepatitis A, it was traced to green onions, and the strain was closely related to a common Mexican strain.

These data suggest that the contamination is probably in Mexico, but very localized, so by the time the onions are served in restaurants, the contamination is fairly concentrated.

The Chi Chi's outbreak was large because they have a high volume (11,000 meals in Oct served at the one retaurant) and the vast majority of those infected at mild salsa during a three day period at the beginning of Oct.

However, some of the outliers (those affected very early or very late), may indicated a chronic low level infection that usually goes undetected (people do get hepatitis A, but either they don't know they are affected or have no idea that the infection came from food eaten a month earlier).

The chance that the Chi Chi's outbreak was linked to deliberate contamination by a Chi Chi's empolyee is very close to zero.

89 posted on 11/22/2003 6:22:44 AM PST by kdono
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To: flamefront
Here is the official report on the outbreak

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm52d1121a1.htm

Hepatitis A Outbreak Associated with Green Onions at a Restaurant --- Monaca, Pennsylvania, 2003

The Pennsylvania Department of Health and CDC are investigating an outbreak of hepatitis A outbreak among patrons of a restaurant (Restaurant A) in Monaca, Pennsylvania. As of November 20, approximately 555 persons with hepatitis A have been identified, including at least 13 Restaurant A food service workers and 75 residents of six other states who dined at Restaurant A. Three persons have died. Preliminary sequence analysis of a 340 nucleotide region of viral RNA obtained from three patrons who had hepatitis A indicated that all three virus sequences were identical. Preliminary analysis of a case-control study implicated green onions as the source of the outbreak.

Among 207 persons with hepatitis A who were interviewed and who ate at Restaurant A only once during the 2--6 weeks (i.e., the typical incubation period for hepatitis A) before illness, dates of illness onset were between October 14 and November 12. These 207 patrons reported eating food prepared in Restaurant A during September 14--October 17; a total of 181 (87%) persons reported eating at Restaurant A during October 3--6 (Figure). All infected Restaurant A food service workers became ill after October 26, suggesting that a food service worker could not have been the source of the outbreak. However, during late October--early November, these ill food service workers were working in Restaurant A when they could have been infectious. For this reason, immune globulin has been provided to approximately 9,000 persons who ate food from Restaurant A during this time or had exposures to ill persons involved in the outbreak. The restaurant has been closed.

90 posted on 11/22/2003 6:31:21 AM PST by kdono
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To: kdono
The chance that the Chi Chi's outbreak was linked to deliberate contamination by a Chi Chi's empolyee is very close to zero.

Thank you for clearing that up. I was just contending that if a whole field of green onions was being watered by say untreated sewage water, that the outbreak would be more widespread, since there would be thousands of pounds of green onions being shipped out from that contaminated field.

The Chi Chi's outbreak was large because they have a high volume (11,000 meals in Oct served at the one retaurant) and the vast majority of those infected at mild salsa during a three day period at the beginning of Oct.

I also read about the vast majority of the people getting sick ate the mild salsa, which would tell me that it was a small batch(say a carton) of green onions that were actually contaminated and that batch could have been contaminated any way down the supply chain, IMO.

The salsa question brings up another interesting question. Did the Beaver valley Chi-Chi's make their own salsa or is it canned(bottled)? If it is I wonder why they haven't called for a recall?

91 posted on 11/22/2003 6:58:57 AM PST by Dane
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To: Dane
Did the Beaver valley Chi-Chi's make their own salsa or is it canned(bottled)?

The hot salsa is bottled elsewhere, the mild salsa was made on site (with a shelf life of a few days). The mild salsa includes green onions. The contamination may have been limited to less than one small bunch on green onions.

The attack rate was very high. Since the salsa is served with free chips, most eat the salsa while waiting for their meals. The number of positives reported so far is 575, but I believe all or most were called in by local physicians, so there were probably many more who either developed mild symptoms or didn't go to the doctor because of insurance / convenience issues. The number infected was probably closer to 1000 than 500.

Since most infected dined at Chi Chi's during 3 days, which included a weekend, it seems likely that less than 2000 meals were served and some might prefer the hot salsa over the mild, so the attack rate may have been in excess of 50% for anyone eating mild salsa during the peak days.

92 posted on 11/22/2003 7:41:38 AM PST by kdono
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To: kdono
Thank you for the information. Very informative.
93 posted on 11/22/2003 9:02:45 AM PST by Dane
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