Hepatitis A Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Hepatitis A Blog

5/24/05

27% of the population of Dickens County is being treated for Hepatitis A. The State of Texas has now issued a Hepatitis Alert after 22 people tested positive for the disease which is passed from person to person. The city of Spur lies in the heart of Dickens County, 73 miles East of Lubbock. That's where more than 1,000 people have received preventive shots of immune globulin in the past two days.

But the citizens of Dickens County are handing the blame to health officials, claiming they should have stopped this long before it surfaced at May Day celebrations in Spur.

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Ken Morgan
May 20, 2005

Hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, affects many Americans. There are more than 100 causes of hepatitis and the most common one in the United States is alcohol. If hepatitis is caused by a virus it is given a letter, like hepatitis A, B or C. Hepatitis A and B are preventable with a vaccine.

We still see more than 200,000 cases of hepatitis A and more than 300,000 cases of hepatitis B every year. There is no vaccine for hepatitis C. HCV infects more than 650,000 in California and more than 5 million in the United States.

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By Ben Chapman
May 17, 2005, 00:05
Commentary from the Food Safety Network

This is usually my favourite time of year -- springtime brings the NHL playoffs.

Normally it's non-stop hockey on television, in the news and on my mind. Though the World Championships have just ended in Austria, it just was not the same. I sat this one out and I wasn't the only one. Patrick Elias of the gold medal-winning Czech Republic and the New Jersey Devils, yearly foe of my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs, was also on the shelf.

But Elias didn't miss the Championships as a result of indifference towards international hockey. Elias didn't play because he's been battling a hepatitis A infection that he's had since March. The Czech winger spent four weeks in the hospital, lost about 30 pounds, missed the remainder of the Russian hockey season (where he had been playing to pass the time) and finally the World Championships. All this due to what his agent described as bad seafood in a Russian airport. Elias is one of an increasing number of people to fall victim to this sneaky virus.

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Hepatitis A is a nationally reportable condition, and the surveillance case definition* includes both clinical criteria and serologic confirmation (1). State health departments and CDC have investigated persons with positive serologic tests for acute hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection (i.e., IgM anti-HAV) whose illness was not consistent with the clinical criteria of the hepatitis A case definition. Test results indicating acute HAV infection among persons who do not have clinical or epidemiologic features consistent with hepatitis A are a concern for state and local health departments because of the need to assess whether contacts need postexposure immunoprophylaxis.

This report summarizes results of three such investigations, which suggested that most of the positive tests did not represent recent acute HAV infections. To improve the predictive value of a positive IgM anti-HAV test, clinicians should limit laboratory testing for acute HAV infection to persons with clinical findings typical of hepatitis A or to persons who have been exposed to settings where HAV transmission is suspected.

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New rules target green onions, are tougher than in U.S.
By Diane Lindquist
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 15, 2005

MEXICALI -- After the deadly hepatitis A outbreak linked to Baja California green onions a year and a half ago, Mexico has imposed an unprecedented food safety program that far exceeds practices in the United States.
"If you're going to grow onions in Baja California, you're going to do it right," said Baja California Agriculture Secretary Juan Pablo Hern·ndez.

The program, which started in spring, requires Baja California growers and packers who export green onions to the United States to be certified as having good food safety practices. Among the new rules that solely target Baja California green onions are state inspections of living and working conditions in the state's fields and packaging sheds.

It's Mexico's first mandatory food safety certification program.

In the United States, the federal government's guidelines for all crops are voluntary and do not require inspections.

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Fri May 13, 2005

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Routinely testing people for hepatitis A virus (HAV) -- when they don't have clinical symptoms of infection or a history of exposure -- raises the likelihood of false-positive results, investigators report.
Hepatitis A is most often caught when sanitation is poor, or when carriers are not careful about personal hygiene. A false-positive test result may mean that a person's contacts undergo unnecessary treatment to prevent infection.

Dr. Z. F. Dembek, at the Connecticut Department of Public Health, and colleagues investigated cases that tested positive for HAV in Connecticut and Alaska. They report their findings in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, put out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Connecticut, 127 positive test results were reported between 2002 and 2003, but only 108 of the patients had illness consistent with acute hepatitis A. Of the remaining 19 considered to be false-positives, 9 had no symptoms of any illness and 10 had clinical signs that were not consistent with hepatitis A.

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Health Department Says Restaurant Patrons Not At Risk
May 11, 2005

SALEM, N.H. -- State public health officials said Wednesday that a food service worker in Salem was diagnosed with hepatitis A, but they said there is no concern that customers have been infected.

Public Health Director MaryAnn Cooney said the department's investigation shows no substantial risk to customers because of the timing of the worker's illness and precautions he took while preparing or handling food. The state is not releasing the name of the business.

The person is in the hospital and doing well. His family members and others close to him are being treated.

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05/11/2005
Beaver County Times

When the North American Free Trade Agreement was being debated in the United States, some supporters played down demands by American labor groups and others that it include provisions relating to health, safety, labor, the environment and other areas.

NAFTA backers said it would infringe on Mexico's sovereignty to impose restrictions in these areas.

We thought of the decade-old debate following a report by the federal Food and Drug Administration that workers at one of four Mexican green onion farms inspected as a result of the 2003 hepatitis A outbreak at the Chi-Chi's restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall lived in windowless metal shacks with no showers.

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05/07/2005
Joe Mandak, Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH - The Food and Drug Administration says workers at one of four Mexican green onion farms inspected as a result of a 2003 hepatitis outbreak lived in windowless metal shacks with no showers.

Shallow trenches ran from an area littered with soiled diapers and other human waste, downhill to onion fields and a packaging house, recently released documents show.

The FDA has stopped short of conclusively linking any one problem at the farms to the outbreak, which sickened at least 650 people and killed four who ate at the Chi-Chi's restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall in Center Township.

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May. 06, 2005
JOE MANDAK
Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - The Food and Drug Administration says workers at one of four Mexican green onion farms inspected as the result of a 2003 hepatitis outbreak lived in windowless metal shacks with no showers. Shallow trenches ran from an area littered with soiled diapers and other human waste, downhill to onion fields and a packaging house, recently released documents show.

The FDA has stopped short of conclusively linking any one problem at the farms to the outbreak, which sickened at least 650 people and killed four who ate at the Chi-Chi's restaurant in Beaver County.

And attorneys for Louisville, Ky.-based Chi-Chi's and a key supplier say unresolved questions about liability for the outbreak have more to do with contract law than anything the FDA found on the farms.

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With media attention on product recalls due to potential contamination with such bacteria and viruses as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and hepatitis A and outbreaks of illnesses caused by these pathogens comes consumers' need to know about foodborne pathogens. Marler Clark, the Seattle law firm that has represented thousands of victims of foodborne illness outbreaks across the country, re-launched its Web site about foodborne illness, www.foodborneillness.com, in mid-April.

(PRWEB) May 3, 2005 -- Foodborne illnesses, such as E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria, and Hepatitis A, have been the topic of news reports across the nation in recent months. With media attention on product recalls and outbreaks comes consumers' need to know about foodborne pathogens. Marler Clark, the Seattle law firm that has represented thousands of victims of foodborne illness outbreaks across the country, re-launched its Web site about foodborne illness, www.foodborneillness.com, in mid-April.

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By Juliana Goodwin
News-Leader

The outbreak led to panic: Hundreds of people lined up in 1997 at the Springfield-Greene County Health Department for inoculations against hepatitis A after the condition popped up at a local restaurant.

It's been years since there has been such an outbreak locally, and Ron Lawson, a public health investigator for the department, credits a 2001 health ordinance that requires restaurant workers to wear gloves when handling ready-to-eat foods.

Even so, the threat of hepatitis can stoke fear among health officials and the public.

The word hepatitis simply means inflammation of the liver. Alcoholism and an overdose of pills can cause it, but hepatitis A, B and C are all viruses with distinct differences. Hepatitis D and E also exist, but are extremely rare.

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By JODY RECORD
Union Leader Correspondent

HAMPTON -- Tests for hepatitis A in a fast-food restaurant worker have turned out to be negative, state health officials reported yesterday.

"We got the test results back and we do not have a case of hepatitis A in the restaurant in Hampton," said Dr. Jose Montero, of the state Department of Public Health. "There is nothing else that needs to be done at this point."

On Wednesday, the Hampton pubic health officer received a report of an employee at the Burger King on Route 1 was showing signs of the viral infection that is transferred hand-to-mouth.

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By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH -- Bankrupt Chi-Chi's Inc. and its subsidiaries have tentatively agreed to pay $800,000 to compensate nearly 9,500 people who got inoculated because of a hepatitis outbreak linked to a western Pennsylvania restaurant.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the class action settlement agreement, which must still be filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, from William Marler, a Seattle attorney who represents the plaintiffs' class.

The victims will split $800,000, but how much each gets will be determined by how many of them eventually file claims with the court, Marler said. His firm will get a fee of $150,000, though Marler said that money would be donated to charity after his firm pays $50,000 in expenses spelled out in the deal.

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