Wednesday, June 30, 2004
The Associated Press
The bankruptcy court overseeing the Chapter 11 case of Chi-Chi’s Inc. authorized the restaurant chain to pay more than $2 million in settlements to customers who suffered from an outbreak of hepatitis A at a restaurant in the Beaver Valley Mall.
The order, signed last week by Judge Charles G. Case of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., and made available yesterday, authorizes the Tex-Mex eatery to pay 60 claims totaling $2.18 million.
The settlements stem from the largest outbreak of hepatitis A in U.S. history, the focal point of which was a Chi-Chi’s restaurant in Beaver County.
About 600 people contracted the disease last year from contaminated green onions shipped from Mexico. The outbreak was blamed for four deaths.Continue Reading Bankruptcy court OKs Chi-Chi’s $2 million in hepatitis settlements

By Greg Gatlin
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
It didn’t take lawyers long to swoop in on Friendly’s after a case of hepatitis A at the restaurant chain’s Arlington restaurant.
Lawyers who are expert in food-borne illness cases filed a class-action lawsuit Friday against Friendly’s in Middlesex Superior Court on behalf of plaintiff Frederick C. Foster…

By Associated Press
BOSTON – Two clinics to treat hepatitis A will be held this week for patrons of a Boston sub shop where a food handler tested positive for the highly contagious virus.
The worker at Quiznos Sub Shop in the city’s Downtown Crossing shopping area tested positive over the weekend, city officials said in a statement.
The Boston Public Health Commission recommended that anyone who ate food from the shop June 17 through June 19 receive an injection before July 1. It is estimated that less than 600 people ate food from the sub shop on those dates.Continue Reading Food handler tests positive for Hepatitis A

By Kay Lazar
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
What a difference a weekend makes.
The hepatitis A inoculation clinic held by Arlington health officials yesterday went a lot smoother than Friday’s when thousands waited hours in the drizzle to be treated.
“After Friday, we sat down with everyone involved in the planning and decided we lacked some signage and we also made it easier access for the elderly, the handicapped and people with children,” said Arlington Deputy Fire Chief Wayne Springer.
“We also placed chairs along the line and the Red Cross provided free bottled water,” he said. “And there wasn’t any rain, so that helped.”Continue Reading Hepatitis inoculations get much more Friendly

Associated Press
PITTSBURGH – Two Mexican growers implicated in last year’s deadly hepatitis A outbreak in western Pennsylvania cannot resume shipping green onions to the United States, the Food and Drug Administration said.
Inspectors who visited Tecno Agro Internacional and Agro Industrias Vigor between June 1 and June 4 did not find the virus in the water supply, but found continued problems with water quality as well as food safety and hygiene practices of workers, an FDA spokesman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The FDA said such practices “could potentially lead to another (intestinal) pathogen outbreak.”
The United States banned shipments of green onions from these and two other companies during its investigation of the hepatitis A outbreak at the Beaver Valley Mall Chi-Chi’s Restaurant. The outbreak affected 660 people and was blamed for four deaths.Continue Reading FDA turns down two requests to resume green onion shipments

6/18/2004 9:37 PM
By: Capital News 9 web staff
After a Hepatitis A outbreak in Massachusetts, New York state officials aren’t taking any chances.
The New York State Health Department has issued a Hepatitis A advisory for the entire state. A Friendly’s restaurant in Arlington, Massachusetts, is at the center of the outbreak, and health…

Thousands Show Up For Hepatitis Clinic
WCVB TheBostonChannel.com
Thousands of people attended a clinic in Arlington Friday amid a Hepatitis A scare after an employee at a Friendly’s restaurant was diagnosed with the illness.
NewsCenter 5’s Jorge Quiroga reported that about 3,800 people ate at the restaurant during the two-week period that the infected employee…

By Boston.com Staff
June 16, 2004
A case of hepatitis A has occurred in a food worker at the Friendly’s Restaurant located at 105 Broadway in Arlington, the town’s Board of Health and state health officials announced today.
In a notice posted on the Board’s web site health officials warned that people who ate cold or uncooked foods at the restaurant between June 4 through June 15 may be at risk of developing hepatitis A.
Officials urged that anyone who ate cold or uncooked foods at the restaurant during that period should contact their health care provider and be administered Immune Globulin as soon as possible.Continue Reading Friendly’s Restaurant food worker diagnosed with hepatitis A