In San Francisco, California last month, there was a food poisoning outbreak at the Delfina restaurant. About two dozen people at a private part contracted food poisoning. You may have read about this outbreak.
Here’s what you didn’t know: the restaurant, along with every other restaurant in the country, isn’t required by law to report this outbreak to the government at the local or state levels. The federal government doesn’t require it either. Your doctor, however, is required to report food poisoning illnesses, by law. And if local or state authorities receive multiple reports of similar illnesses in a geographical cluster, they’ll start an official investigation.
Restaurants are inspected by local and county health departments. The FDA is a consultant in these matters, and has published the FDA Food Code, which most states adopt. Complaints about restaurants are handled at the state level. You can find your state using this interactive map from FoodSafety.gov.
While large-scale outbreaks at restaurants are not common, they do happen, as evidenced by the Salmonella outbreak at a Mexican restaurant in 2011. The FDA issued a report in 2009 on the occurrence of foodborne illness risk factors in fast food restaurants, institutional food service facilities, full service restaurants, and retail food store facilities. In most cases, improper holding time and temperature and poor personal hygiene were the most common risk factors that needed priority attention.
Delfina had never had a (known) outbreak of food poisoning before the incident last month. The staff played “epidemiologist” and worked with its customers to discover the contamination source. This is their statement:
“This unfortunate incident is an isolated case and happened to a private party. There is no reason for any alarm or panic from our customers or throughout our city. We are confident that this is not a part of an epidemic or outbreak and are still working with the health department. We would like to assure the public that there is no ‘tainted lettuce’ outbreak in San Francisco as reported by SFist and then spread throughout the internet. Below is our account of the incident:
A group of fifty rented out the restaurant for a private dinner with a set menu for their holiday party on December tenth, approximately one month ago.
A day and a half later we were informed that approximately half the group reported symptoms consistent with those of food poisoning.
We believe we narrowed the culprit down to three of the most likely menu items from the private party menu. We contacted the purveyors of the most suspect ingredients to inform them of what happened.
After contacting the Department of Health we decided not to report it since it was a contained isolated incident.
At the end of the day, and as we expressed to the affected group, we take full responsibility and are truly sorry to be the cause of their discomfort. We are in the business of providing pleasure, not misery!”
