Over 300 sickened in Raleigh from Food borne outbreaks
by Greg Harbaugh on 02/15/10
In the past 60 days over 300 people have been sickened in local eating establishments. In mid December Norovirus struck patrons at the long time favorite 42nd St. Oyster Bar and just this past weekend over 150 attendees of the YMCA Leadership Conference at the Raleigh Convention Center suffered from nausea, diarrhea, and related symptoms following their Friday evening meal. Six people required hospitalization. The investigation is ongoing as to the Convention Center outbreak cause.
It's hard to pinpoint causes of food borne illness outbreaks especially in the case of Norovirus, however inspection reports indicate that the Convention Center caterer had numerous sanitation violation including soiled untensils, under strength sanitizer, and food found to be in the temperature danger zone.
The concern for the public is; have these violations and especially the root causes been corrected? The other issue is that in a recent inspection the Converntion Center scored 88.5 (B) but was awarded 2 bonus points for completion of a Food Safety course. The end result is the Center now graded an (A) with the extra points. Obviously, completing the course didn't help the site conditions or increase the level of Food Safety experienced by the patrons.
Successful completion of ServSafe or a like food safety course should be expected and not treated as a bonus. Establishments should be docked points for not having completed the course. This would not give the eating public a false sense of security.
