There’s a lot of amateur epidemiology going on this week. The latest comes from the owner of San Jose’s Mariscos San Juan #3, which reopened yesterday after being linked to 182 illnesses including 12 hospitalizations.

According to ABC 7, owner Segio Cruz says that homeless individuals using his restroom may have introduced the pathogen. Public health folks believe it was a food handler.

“This is first time this happened in my store, I opened my store in 2000,” said Segio Cruz, the restaurant owner.

Cruz owns three restaurants. He says since the shigella outbreak, business has dropped off 70 percent. He says even more damaging is the negative reputation generated by the incident, which he feels his restaurant does not deserve. “You can get sick in your house, your office, anywhere,” insists Cruz.

Cruz said homeless people often use the bathroom inside his restaurant and that perhaps could be another contributing factor. But again, there is still no definitive answers as to what caused this massive, and now mysterious, outbreak.

If his theory is correct, how did the Shigella get from the restroom to the food?