On Monday, Boston College issued a clear notice to its students stating that the individuals who have fallen ill have been affected by the food of the outlet and they should strictly avoid more interactions for the restaurant. He added that if there was a silver lining to this, it was that Chipotle has looked at every single ingredient used at its restaurants, and there are some 64 ingredients used by them. It also said that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has been informed about the illness, and the department is investigating the case.
Advertisement
The Boston Public Health Commission is now certain of the illness that caused 136 people to become ill in a short space of time.
At first the E. Coli outbreak at our beloved Chioptle seemed like a temporary scare-something that would pass quickly and allow us to eat our delicious burritos once more-especially when spokespeople for the restaurant insisted there was nothing to worry about. It causes as many as 21 million illnesses annually, often in places such as hospitals, cruise ships and universities where people eat and live in close quarters.
As the number of illnesses steadily increased over the course of the week, campus health officials discovered that the larger number of those complaining of gastrointestinal symptoms had patronized the restaurant recently.
Branded with the tagline “food with integrity”, Chipotle has led the movement among fast-food chains in acquiring produce from local farmers, seeking meat producers who carry out humane animal practices, and reducing its environmental impact.
Diverting from the recent cases of E. coli sickness related with Chipotle restaurants, these students had in fact contacted norovirus and not the E. Coli infection as everyone had initially suspected.
Chipotle founder and co-CEO Steve Ells apologized for sickening so many Boston students, saying “This was a very unfortunate incident, and I’m deeply sorry that this happened”.
The number of confirmed cases up to Friday included 129 Boston College students and seven people not affiliated with the college. All the tests for bacteria pathogens of E. coli had come back negative.
Norovirus can be contracted from an infected person or from contaminated food, water or surfaces.
Advertisement
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., based in Denver, had said that whatever the likely ingredient was that made people sick is out of its restaurants and that it is adopting stricter food-safety standards.
