Unreported Case of Mass Food Poisoning at Delfina Reflects a Gap in Food Supply Safety Net

[soupçon]

i guess you have to read the New York Times to keep informed of stuff like this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/hea...

[GH1618]

It's odd that of two dozen persons affected, not one reported the incident. The Chronicle probably didn't know about it.

[chefswife]

Chronicle reported on Inside Scoop after Bay Citizens reported but not making a big deal out of it. Having being in the restaurant industry, I would have closed the restaurant until I know the cause of it - I would be scared to death!

[mzsnowhite]

I had an experience with a well known Berkeley restaurant several years ago when I got food poisoning from a risotto. Two people in the waiting room of the local hospital and I discovered we all had lunch at the same place after eating the same entree. The hospital placed a call to the Alameda Dept of Health on our behalf. The DOH went to the restaurant that afternoon and had the risotto pulled from the dinner menu. But hey, what about using the chicken broth for dinner entrees? I sure hope they were made to toss the broth and any chicken. The next day, two of us went to the restaurant for the purpose of speaking to the chef and/or general manager. We were told with a straight face that they weren't contacted by DOH and couldn't have possibly served spoiled food. I never went back there.

[paulj]

"Q. Could my food poisoning symptoms come from a restaurant I ate at a week ago?
Yes, this is possible. If you have food poisoning symptoms, they are not necessarily from the meal you just ate. In fact, symptoms for the most common pathogens do not appear for up to 12 hours after eating the contaminated food, and can appear up to a week later."
http://www.foodborneillness.com/food_poisoning_faq
http://www.foodborneillness.com/incub...

[sunshine842]

that's what makes it so tough to chase down foodborne illnesses...by the time an infection manifests, a lot of people don't remember what they ate during the suspect period.

I think all of us -- including us Chowhounds -- would be hard-put to detail *everything* we'd put in our mouths between 9 and 36 hours ago.

[chefswife]

I'm surprised nobody has commented on this and it's not a big news in SF Chronicle?!

[soupçon]

That's sort of the point of the article. I inserted the name of the restaurant in my post's title so it would catch they eye of some of the zillions of Delfina fans out there, but apparently no one wants to read about it or think about it or talk about it. But jeez, you can't just pretend that nothing happened. As the catch phrase goes, "There oughta be a law..."