Thread: 250 Get Sick At Olive Garden

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061215/bs_ ... illness_dc

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - More than 250 people have reported becoming sick after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant in Indianapolis, Indiana, a county health official said on Friday, a day after an outbreak of E.coli at Taco Bell restaurants was declared over.

The news makes Olive Garden at least the third U.S. restaurant chain this month to be linked to widespread customer illnesses and those scares followed a high-profile outbreak of E.coli earlier this year, linked to spinach, that killed three people and sickened 200 others.

Officials are working on identifying the cause of the Indiana illnesses and an Olive Garden spokesman said there was no indication they were connected to any other outbreak.

Some customers who ate at the Olive Garden restaurant in northeast Indianapolis between December 9 and December 13 have reported nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and in some cases fever, said John Althardt, a spokesman for the Marion County Health Department.

Three of those people have been hospitalized.

A spokesman for Olive Garden, which is owned by Orlando, Florida-based Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSERI - news), said the company was in the process of closing the affected restaurant to help health officials investigate the source of the illnesses.

"The primary focus of the health department is on some employees that have been exhibiting flu-like symptoms," said Olive Garden spokesman Steve Coe.

Coe added that the restaurant had also been sanitized twice and that appropriate food safety practices had been reinforced with its staff.

An employee who answered the phone at the Olive Garden restaurant on E. 82nd Street in Indianapolis said that was the outlet where the sick people had eaten. He also said the restaurant was still open.

Tests of both the sick peoples' stool and leftovers they took home from the restaurant will be conducted later today or Monday, Althardt said. He added the tests would take about 48 hours.

At least six employees at the restaurant have also reported being sick in the last week, although Althardt said those illnesses may not be related to the patrons' sicknesses.

A spokeswoman for the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration, Julie Zawisza, said she had no information on the illnesses linked to Olive Garden.

Late on Thursday, federal health officials said an outbreak of E.coli that sickened 71 people in the U.S. Northeast who ate at the Taco Bell fast-food chain was over.

That outbreak, which officials have said was likely caused by contaminated lettuce, has led to a drop in sales at Taco Bell restaurants since it was disclosed earlier this month.

Also this week, restaurant chain Taco John's said E.coli sickened 54 of its customers in Iowa and Minnesota. That case is believed to be unrelated to the Taco Bell outbreak, federal health officials have said.

Darden shares closed 82 cents, or about 2.0 percent, down at $40.44 Friday on the
New York Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington)

Eat fruit and pick it yourself.

When are the public going to realize that this is usual in 3 rd world countries. The vegetables have to be washed with soap or dept on water with vinegar for some time. Everibody has to stop eating raw vegetables and in restaurants forget the salads.
Even the organic are contaminated. @We must cook or wash everyting and especially don't trust restaurants even the 5 stars.
Even fruits have to be peeled off or very well washed.

I have stopped going out to eat! I've got an O'Charley's Restaurant gift card I've had for over 2 years.

I bet its the lettuce again. The Olive Garden usually gives you a salad with your meal. Cooked vegetables shouldn't be a problem.

Now Americans must even fear eating out! Illegals carrying who knows what diseases harvesting our food, working in restaurants, in processing plants, and many of them with criminal records to begin with!

And until employers are fined and punished with jail sentences, they will continue hiring people who literally do not know how to use toilet paper to work in their kitchens. Having worked in industry which had Ecuadorans on the factory floor in eastern Long Island, I know just how dirty these people are. We were forced to bar them from using one employee bathroom just so we could keep one clean enough to use. It was not racism or bigotry which led to this decision; it was what we found on the floors of the bathroom. Unfortunately, just about every single reataurant, no matter how expensive, no matter how beautiful the table cloth is, has these people in the kitchen preparing food.

the food industry says it can't survive without it's cheap illegal labor, but could they survive if middle class America just gets so grossed out and decides to stay home? i for one am game to try.

Can you imagine the place where these vegetables are imported from ?
It must be from several little farms and the bathroom must be in the middle of the vegetables growing bed.

minnie wrote:

Can you imagine the place where these vegetables are imported from ? It must be from several little farms and the bathroom must be in the middle of the vegetables growing bed.

I believe most of the lettuce is coming from huge corporate farming operations. You're right about the bathrooms being located in the fields. Where else is someone in the middle of a 200-acre lettuce patch going to go when they haven't been taught that this is a bad thing? They certainly aren't going to hold it when the need to vacate feces hits. Once done, they probably wipe their butt with a lettuce leaf or two and continue picking (without washing their hands). Leaving a 200 to 400-acre vegetable field for a 2 minute squat isn't a very viable option in their opinion. Mexican nationals, or any third world illegal immigrant for that matter, don't typically consider the importance of proper sanitation at the same level Americans do. It's a cultural thing brought on by the lack of clean water. Many of the rural villages where a lot of illegal immigrants come from do not have an abundance source of clean water, which forces them to conserve what they do have. Washing hands after using the bathroom, washing prior to meals, brushing teeth 2-3 times daily, bathing regularly, etc. is frequently considered a waste of water. It's not really their fault, it's just what the situation dictates.

I don't really know if illegal immigrants are the cause of the E. Coli outbreaks we've been recently experiencing, but I certainly think it's worth looking in to.