June 2005

June 28, 2005
Ontario Farmer
B28
Jim Romahn
U.S. lawyer Bill Marler of Seattle, Wash. Was cited as telling an audience at the University of Guelph recently that medicare has spared Canadian food companies from multi-million-dollar lawsuits when their products poison consumers.
Marler was further cited as saying that Canadian lawyers might file class-action lawsuits, but there won’t be much money for the victims.
There have, however, been Canadian food poisonings every bit as spectacular as the U.S. cases. The largest in Canadian history involved lunchmate products from Schneider Corp.; there is an ongoing lawsuit between Schneiders and cheese supplier Parmalat.Continue Reading Canadian food companies escape food poisoning litigation; because of Medicare, lawyer says suits are not lucrative enough to attract lawyers

www.yumasun.com
MITCH M. FREEMAN, M.D.
Jun 20, 2005
The liver is a vital organ located in the upper right-hand side of the abdomen. It performs many functions in the body, including processing the body’s nutrients, manufacturing bile to help digest fats, regulating blood clotting and breaking down potentially toxic substances into harmless ones that the body either can use or excrete.
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver that can be caused by viruses, chemicals, drugs, alcohol, inherited diseases or the patient’s own immune system. The most common cause of hepatitis is an infection with a virus.Continue Reading Most with hepatitis A fully recover in a couple of weeks

Local News
BY BLAKE SCHMIDT, STAFF WRITER
Jun 15, 2005
Although his restaurant was at the center of a hepatitis A scare in Yuma last week, John Gutierrez is no less certain that he keeps his place clean.
To prove a point, he invited a restaurant inspector and a reporter from The Sun into Chile Pepper, where, he says, sales had decreased 90 percent since reports surfaced that one of his workers was infected with hepatitis A.
But Gutierrez knew that Chile Pepper received an “excellent” score on its last health inspection and that his facilities are up to county standards.Continue Reading Nothing to hide

Sunday, June 12, 2005
BY JOHN BEAUGE
For The Patriot-News
LAMAR – State Trooper Richard Davy is not 100 percent, but he says he wants to go back to work because he’s running out of money.
The 39-year-old Clinton County resident says his life hasn’t been the same since he ate at a Chi-Chi’s in western Pennsylvania in October 2003. He is among the 650 people who contracted hepatitis at the restaurant. Four died.
His financial condition isn’t likely to improve soon.Continue Reading Troopers who got hepatitis lose benefits

BY LINN E. CAROLEO
Jun 13, 2005
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series about restaurant food safety and Yuma County’s efforts to enforce restaurant sanitation standards.
In several states, you know before you walk through the front door if the restaurant you plan to patronize is clean and sanitary.
Laws require those establishments to post in the window their grades in the most recent health inspection of the premises.
However, in Yuma County and in all of Arizona, such postings are not required by law.Continue Reading Health reports at fingertips

Local News
YumaSun.com
Jeffery Gautreaux Sun Staff Writer
Jun 12, 2005
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series about restaurant food safety and Yuma County’s efforts to enforce restaurant sanitation standards.
With the population booming in the county and people eating out more and more often, Brian O’Green, manager for environmental health for the Yuma County Health Department, said the food service industry is becoming more and more difficult to regulate.
But despite the current hepatitis A scare, O’Green said food-borne illnesses remain rare occurrences in the county.Continue Reading Keepers of the kitchen

Michelle Volkmann, Sun Staff Writer
Jun 12, 2005
Wash your hands. Wash your hands.
And don’t forget to wash your hands.
That message echoed throughout kitchens of Yuma restaurants last week as owners and managers take the hepatitis A incident at Chile Pepper as an opportunity to review health code rules with their employees.Continue Reading Restaurant owners emphasize rules with employees

BY BLAKE SCHMIDT
Jun 11, 2005
Deborah McIntosh went home from work Thursday night to play ball with her boys. When she tried to pick up the ball, her fingers wouldn’t bend.
“I couldn’t clench the ball, I had to scoop it,” McIntosh said, displaying her swollen, red digits the next morning. She didn’t put her rings on her fingers, either. They wouldn’t fit.
McIntosh, director of nursing for the Yuma County Health Department, is one of the certified nurses at the Yuma Civic Center whose hands are sore from giving so many shots. Since Wednesday, about 50 volunteers and nurses have administered 4,300 immune globulin shots to customers of Chile Pepper in the wake of fears of contracting hepatitis A after an employee of the restaurant was diagnosed with the virus.Continue Reading Hepatitis exposure makes for busy week for county’s nurses

Marler Clark, Food Poisoning Attorneys

Marler Clark is the nation’s foremost law firm with a practice dedicated to representing victims of food poisoning, including victims of hepatitis A outbreaks.

Since 1993, Marler Clark’s lawyers have represented thousands of clients in litigation against restaurants and food companies whose food was traced as the source of illness.

Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005
Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Two state troopers who contracted hepatitis A from a meal at a Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant in Beaver may not collect benefits under a state program that covers police officers disabled in the line of duty, a court ruled Friday.
The troopers were among more than 650 people who became ill after eating meals containing infected green onions at the Beaver Valley Mall restaurant in fall 2003. Four people died.Continue Reading Troopers sickened by hepatitis at Chi-Chi’s lose benefits ruling