There has been a gastroenteritis outbreak at the Jimmy Johns sandwich restaurant in Porter County, Indiana. At least 60 people have become ill, but no one has been hospitalized. Jimmy Johns’ employees are being tested for illness; norovirus is suspected.
The people who were sickened included emergency responders to a train collision on Friday, January 6, 2012. They were the first to report symptoms. The Porter County Health Department received more calls about illness two days later. The restaurant is cooperating and closed the store for a short time while it was disinfected.
Gastroenteritis is caused by infected people preparing food; the food itself doesn’t cause the illness. Symptoms of the illness include vomiting and diarrhea. Norovirus is one of the most common causes of food poisoning; infections peak in the winter months from November through April.
Jimmy Johns has been the source of several food poisoning outbreaks in the last few years, including a Salmonella outbreak in 2010 that sickened more than 90 people.
In June 2011, the company was sued by the Industrial Workers of the World Jimmy Johns Workers Union after they fired whistle-blowers who revealed that the restaurant forced sandwich-makers to work while they were sick.
At that time, the company’s policy required adding one to two disciplinary points to workers’ files when they called in sick without finding a replacement; workers were fired after they accumulated six points. The National Labor Relations Board filed a legal complaint against Jimmy Johns five months later, in November 2011.
