Investigators, who also have identified two additional confirmed E. coli cases not linked to Chipotle, will issue an update on the outbreak later on Wednesday. Needless to say, all of the food at these locations has been tested and discarded; every Chipotle location is “batch testing a few ingredients before resupplying”.
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A day after the outbreak was reported, Chipotle was hit with what is probably the first in a series of lawsuits it will face as a result of this health scare.
The group declined Wednesday to identify the sources of its funding beyond saying it receives contributions from restaurants, food and beverage companies, foundations and individuals.
Dr. Katrina Hedberg, OR state epidemiologist, says three people were hospitalized in OR, but all have been treated and released.
Most of the times, the water source used to irrigate the crops gets infected with E. coli bacteria.
Chipotle voluntarily closed down 43 of its locations in Washington and in the Portland area as a precaution after an E. coli outbreak linked to six of its restaurants. Those promises will be put to the test. And one expert also noted that the use of the same ingredients in multiple dishes at Chipotle could complicate the investigation.
Because the case puts officials such as Frieden and Gensheimer at the forefront tacitly accepting culpability for this latest wave of illness, Chipotle takes steps toward fixing this PR crisis. A direct link has not yet been established but health officials in both states have asked people who have become ill after eating at the restaurants to contact their doctor as soon as possible. This policy requires all food options offered in Chipotle outlets to exclude meat taken from animals that have received antibiotics. Without adequate ways of tracing tomatoes or other contaminated produce to their origins, everybody stopped buying tomatoes, everywhere.
“Being able to quickly find where the problem is, is why our organization and others have been arguing for good traceability, from farm to fork”, Hanson said. In addition, it has hired two food safety consultant firms to “assess and improve upon” its “already high standards for food safety”.
Meanwhile, a woman who ate at Chipotle in Vancouver has sued the restaurant as she began experiencing bloody diarrhea after eating at Chipotle.
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“If I was the Chipotle CEO, I would be having my food safety team in my office yesterday asking, ‘What happened and what do we need to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?'” he said.
