According to yet another feature about restaurant inspections, nearly one in five of the New Hampshire’s highest-risk food establishments weren’t inspected at all in 2013 or 2014, despite a federal recommendation they be inspected several times a year.
During that two-year period, the 474 highest-risk establishments in New Hampshire – high-volume food processing plants and large restaurants and dining halls – went an average of 427 days since their last state inspection. One unnamed facility went uninspected for 5,270 days, nearly 15 years.
Those are just a few findings outlined in a recent state audit that reveals flaws in the Food Protection Section, a branch of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services charged with preventing food illnesses and ensuring consumer safety.
State auditors found food inspectors lacked oversight of towns that run their own food protection programs, rarely inspected agricultural fairs or soup kitchens, and didn’t properly collect and manage fees, resulting in an estimated loss of $1.2 million to state coffers between 2013 and 2014. During the two-year audit period, officials found state inspections decreased and complaints rose.
The Department of Health and Human Services agreed with many of the audit’s recommendations, and said it is pursing a new public health accreditation and has plans to launch a database this fall that will shift some critical operations online and give the public electronic access to inspection results.
But the department also pointed out that in recent years the Legislature has been rolling back food safety regulations and the Food Protection Section, made up of 15 employees, has faced staff reductions.
Since 2008, the food inspection program, which oversees roughly 5,352 food establishments in the state, has lost a shellfish supervisor, a food inspector and a food emergency response specialist and inspector.
Forty-five (45) cases of Salmonella Newport infection have been reported to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) since Wednesday, Sept. 2. Since many cases of salmonellosis do not seek health care and get tested, the number of ill people that are part of this outbreak is likely to be larger than the identified number of cases. Consequently, health officials want to bring this outbreak to the attention of people who have become ill with symptoms of salmonellosis but who have not yet consulted a health care provider. These people should mention this outbreak to their health care provider should they consult one.
The investigation to date has found that the 45 cases were all infected with Salmonella Newport bacteria that have matching or very similar DNA fingerprints. Of the 34 people who have been interviewed to date, 32 ate or likely ate at 17 different Chipotle restaurant locations. Most of the restaurant locations are in the Twin Cities metro area, with one in St. Cloud and one in Rochester. Their meal dates range from Aug. 16 to Aug. 26 and they became ill between Aug. 20 and Aug. 29.
The Minnesota cases range in age from 15 to 67 years and are from eight metro and greater Minnesota counties; 56 percent are male. Five cases have been hospitalized; all are recovering.
Investigators from MDH and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture are working on identifying a specific food item source of the outbreak; in the meantime, Chipotle has changed the source of the suspect produce item under investigation. Between Aug. 16 and Aug. 26, Chipotle served more than 560,000 customers in Minnesota and has taken every appropriate measure to ensure that it is safe to eat in its restaurants. Investigators are confident that ongoing transmission at Chipotle as part of this outbreak has ended.
The D.C. Department of Health is trying to determine the source of the outbreak. Environmental and food samples have been collected.
Twenty cases of possible salmonella have been identified, but only two have been confirmed.
Three of those cases occurred over Labor Day weekend, as people were admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital.
A spokeswoman for Fig & Olive says the restaurant is cooperating with the health department.
Fig and Olive released the following statement:
“The health and safety of our restaurants and patrons is of paramount importance to us. Fig & Olive has closed the City Center DC restaurant due to reports that some patrons have recently been sickened. We have retained third-party consultants to provide assistance in this investigation and will cooperate fully with the Department of Health. We will continue to work with the DOH to insure that we have done all we can for the safety of our customers.”
The problem affects nearly one of every three food facilities inspected by the State Department of Agriculture. Food safety checks are more than four years overdue in some cases, the audit said.
Douglas, Lancaster and Hall Counties are inspected by local health departments working under contract with the state. The audit raises questions about whether those inspections are being done on time, but state and local officials said that conclusion is based on faulty state records.
In addition, the audit found that state agriculture inspectors are overdue in checking the accuracy of 14 percent of weighing and measuring devices, ranging from the scales used at supermarket checkout counters to fuel pumps to railroad weight scales. The oldest cases were 11 to 23 years late. The audit does not provide details such as the names or locations of the establishments involved.
The late inspections of food establishments and of weighing and measuring devices were the top concerns raised by an Agriculture Department audit recently released by State Auditor Charlie Janssen’s office.
Bobbie Kriz-Wickham, an Agriculture Department spokeswoman, did not dispute the audit findings.
She said Wednesday that eliminating the backlog of inspections is a “huge priority” for the department and has been a focus of efforts since the current food program manager started in February.
“The audit report confirmed what we were already working on,” Kriz-Wickham said. “We definitely need to get to all of them (overdue inspections) that are on the list.”
She said department officials aim to catch up by January on inspections of facilities deemed at high risk because they prepare or serve food that could potentially cause illness. The goal for catching up with other inspections is June 1.
The Agriculture Department’s food program is responsible for inspecting 6,135 food facilities across 90 of the state’s 93 counties. The department contracts with local health departments to do food safety checks in Douglas, Lancaster and Hall Counties.
Under Agriculture Department policy, inspections are to be done every six months at the highest risk places, such as full-service restaurants, school cafeterias, nursing home kitchens and food processing plants.
Inspections are to be done every 12 months for medium-risk places with limited food preparation, such as fast-food restaurants and cook-to-order kitchens. Low-risk places, which handle only prepackaged or bulk foods, are to be inspected every 18 to 24 months.
Based on department records, the audit found that inspections were overdue for 1,882 facilities, including 1,232 high-risk facilities.
In addition, as of June 8, there were 94 newly licensed food establishments that had never been inspected.
Pest controllers said the rat population in the city was “alarming” and poised to get worse with warm weather on the way.
Brisbane City Council is working with the Myer Centre and food businesses to manage any food safety issues. Three inner city restaurants have already been prosecuted this year for rat problems, and fined a combined $74,500 for health violations after inspections.
Four other restaurants in the Myer Centre have been prosecuted for rat-related violations in the past three years.
The most recent CBD violations involved Empire Kebabs, fined $17,500 in January for cleanliness and pest problems, including rodents, following an inspection in December 2013.
Beijing House in the CBD was also fined $42,000 in June for a range of breaches including selling unsuitable food, hygiene of handlers and the presence of rats. At New Farm, Little Larder was fined $15,000 last week after a council inspection found cockroaches and rodents in August 2014.
A rat found in an oven at Indian Odyssey in the city led to a $30,000 fine in August last year.
In both years, the top complaint was rodents, insects or garbage overflowing or on the floor.
Other common grievances were about spoiled food (766), bare hands in contact with food (562) and broken toilet or lack of toilet paper (233). A half-dozen picky customers even complained about inadequate lighting.
Then there was the stomach-turning offense of a “foreign object” found in a food serving, which led 569 disgusted patrons to ask for inspectors to intervene.
In most cases, the “foreign object” was hair or a small piece of plastic.
Despite the higher volume of complaints, officials insisted restaurants are cleaner than ever as the city’s letter-grading system enters its sixth year.
On their initial inspection, 58 percent of restaurants earned an A in the most recent fiscal year — up from 37 percent in the first year of the grading system. Violations issued to restaurants also dropped — from nearly 213,000 in fiscal 2013 to a tick more than 196,000 in fiscal 2015.
A less punitive system ushered through by the City Council last year decreased fines by 18 percent — to $26.8 million — among the city’s more than 24,000 eateries.
“Over the last five years, restaurant letter grading has successfully motivated restaurants to practice better food safety. Restaurants are performing better on inspection and are cleaner than they have ever been,” said Health Department spokesman Levi Fishman.
Elizabeth has been complaining about her tummy non stop. “She’s constantly ‘My tummy. My tummy,'” said her mom, Deanna Buder. “And then she says ‘I want to see my friends. I want to see kids,’ because no kids are allowed in there. She just misses home.”
The Buder family shared a plate of carnitas at a Los Chilangos food truck last August 8. Although the mom and dad were fine, Elizabeth or Scout as people would call her, started complaining of stomach ache days later. “Normal things that a kid might get, a tummy ache, she was a little tired, she wasn’t hungry,” said Buder. However, Scout’s conditions became worse as her body released some bloody diarrhea. A trip to the emergency room confirmed the parents’ worst nightmare, as Scout’s kidney deteriorates and she has to stay in the Intensive Care Unit.
Scout is just one of the six — now 10 — confirmed positive of a dangerous strain of E.coli O157, all linked to Los Chilangos. Los Chilangos’ Bellevue and other locations were closed last Wednesday by the Public Health department. Los Chilangos serves food at seven farmers markets in King and Snohomish Counties, operates two food trucks, and also caters events. However, they were able to secure an approval to reopen on Thursday. None of the employees were positive of the disease and investigators still have not found the source of the infection.
The Buder family would like to seek more justice beyond the shutting down of the kitchen and the food truck. “”There should be consequences beyond shutting down the kitchen for a few days,” said Buder. “People need to be aware of what to look for, and then after that be aware that you shouldn’t go to this business,” she said.
The restaurant, in conformance with its own corporate policy, voluntarily closed the facility, threw out all remaining food products, cleaned and disinfected the facility including all food contact surfaces, and excluded all employees with symptoms from working in the restaurant. EHD staff conducted an inspection the following day to confirm that the food had been removed, the restaurant was adequately disinfected, and the 18 employees had been excluded from work.
As part of the investigation the EHD and Public Health staff interviewed affected customers and restaurant staff to determine when the illness began and what had been eaten. The EHD also ordered that all affected restaurant employees submit specimens for laboratory analysis in an attempt to determine the cause of the illnesses. As of Sep. 3, 2015, 7-out-of-18 samples tested positive for Norovirus. The employees with positive test results will continue to be excluded from the restaurant until subsequent laboratory analysis results are negative for the virus and the Public Health Division has cleared them to return to work. There have been no further reports of illness since the initial reports two weeks ago.
A local Chinese restaurant temporarily shut down by the Board of Health says it won’t reopen because of the board’s “baseless” and “irresponsible” decision.
In a scathing letter sent to the Board of Health Monday, the manager of Red Pepper, 17 Edgell Road, said the restaurant was firmly refusing “to accept your unjust order.”
Hong Jiang said the health board hurt the restaurant’s reputation and made false and inappropriate statements during its Aug. 24 meeting, including exaggerating its history of critical violations. Citing prior problems and recent failed inspections, members voted 3-0 to close the restaurant until it took steps to ensure food safety.
“Your irresponsible bureaucratic decision has already caused serious financial losses on us since August 24, and conditions you required to allow us to ‘reopen’ is financially unaffordable for a small business like ours,” Jiang wrote. “As such, we are forced to permanently close the Red Pepper Restaurant in Framingham.”
The Board of Health took action after learning inspectors repeatedly found critical violations at Red Pepper in recent months, such as uncovered food, improper food temperatures and no towels or soap at a handwashing station
“It is astounding that a Health Board would arbitrarily erase two years between the dates, in an apparent attempt to exaggerate Red Pepper’s problems and mislead the public,” he wrote.
Jiang also disputed statements Chairman Mike Hugo made about previous consultants calling the place a “hopeless mess” and saying no one there was paying attention to food safety. Jiang wrote the restaurant hired one consultant in 2012 to train kitchen staff and then a second who “praised the cleanliness of our kitchen and also expressed satisfaction with our cooperation during his training sessions.”
Jiang wrote that no one was ever sickened by eating at Red Pepper, and customers, in fact, have written many positive public reviews about the authentic Sichuan cuisine.
“Through a few initial interviews with ill people, we determined that everyone who became sick had something in common – they ate food prepared by, a local food vendor called Los Chilangos,” Public Health staff said in a statement.
The department required the food truck to stop selling food.
A 4-year-old girl is one of those affected, and her mother said her daughter became sick after eating at Los Chilangos around August 8.
The food truck visited the Issaquah and Sammamish farmers markets.
Deanna Buder said her 4-year-old daughter started experiencing pain and swelling in her abdomen, and stopped eating. Tuesday is her seventh day at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Los Chilangos serves food at seven farmers markets in King and Snohomish counties, operates two food trucks, and also caters events. Los Chilangos uses Eastside Commercial Kitchen, where they share space and equipment with about a dozen other food businesses.
The kitchen was told to stop producing food, as were the food trucks that used it.
“We are still investigating the source of the E. coli,” the Public Health statement said. “If we determine that a food contained the E. coli bacteria, we will try to trace it back to stores, suppliers, and even farms to address the root of the problem with corrective actions, if possible.”
King County Public Health released the key steps of their investigation:
We [King Co. Public Health] interviewed people who got sick.
“At this time [Tuesday afternoon], six people have been infected with the same strain of E. coli (three have been hospitalized). When Public Health determines that anyone is sick from a serious foodborne illness like E. coli, we [King Co. Public Health] interview them to determine what may have caused their illness. We [King Co. Public Health] do this to find the source of the outbreak and prevent others from getting infected. In this instance, through a few initial interviews with ill people, we [King Co. Public Health] determined that everyone who became sick had something in common – they ate food prepared by a local food vendor called Los Chilangos. Public Health took swift action and required Los Chilangos to cease operations.”
We [King Co. Public Health] investigated a food business that was associated with the people who got sick.
“But we [King Co. Public Health] didn’t stop there. Los Chilangos serves food at seven farmers markets in King and Snohomish Counties, operates two food trucks, and also caters events. Los Chilangos utilizes a shared kitchen space, called a commissary kitchen. The kitchen that they use is Eastside Commercial Kitchen, where they share space and equipment with about a dozen other food businesses.”
We [King Co. Public Health] intervened at the specific site and operation.
“The condition of the commissary and the potential for cross contamination were deemed an imminent health hazard, and the health officer issued a cease and desist order to the commissary on Thursday, August 27. Additionally, all of the food vendors permitted by Public Health that use this kitchen were also told to cease operations. Recognizing that this lapse in operation hurts business, our team has worked diligently with these vendors to find new places for them to resume their work and remind them about important food safety measures.”
Next steps: tracing the source
“As of today, the investigation isn’t over. We [King Co. Public Health] are still investigating the source of the E. coli. If we determine that a food contained the E. coli bacteria, we will try to trace it back to stores, suppliers, and even farms to address the root of the problem with corrective actions, if possible.
But, it’s possible that the source of E. coli may never be determined. E coli is often linked to beef, but it can also be linked to produce, such as spinach and sprouts, along with a variety of other foods such as unpasteurized juices, raw milk, game meats, and other common foods.
For outbreaks such as this one, we [King Co. Public Health] continue to monitor the situation and look for other common factors among ill people. While we know Los Chilangos is linked, they may not be the only ones involved. For instance, the source of E. coli could be served by other vendors.
We [King Co. Public Health] are currently working with all of the businesses connected to this outbreak to make sure that they are not using any products that may have become contaminated and that they have food safety measures in place. This includes having the businesses address needed repairs to their equipment, providing education to their staff, and ensuring their operations are safe to open.
Though Los Chilangos has been linked to this outbreak, they deserve credit for their dutiful cooperation during our investigation. No food vendor wants to make people sick, and we know everyone is very concerned about the people who have become ill. We will be updating this blog as the picture becomes clearer.”
According to yet another feature about restaurant inspections, nearly one in five of the New Hampshire’s highest-risk food establishments weren’t inspected at all in 2013 or 2014, despite a federal recommendation they be inspected several times a year.
