November 2005

11/29/2005
Chester Daily Local Online
SARAH E. MORAN, Staff Writer
Chester County restaurants are notable exceptions to the rule that many Pennsylvania eateries are only sporadically inspected annually for health and sanitation safety.
Just ask David Magrogan, who owns four Kildare’s restaurants in West Chester, King of Prussia, Media and Manayunk, and is building a fifth on Society Hill in Philadelphia.
“I would eat anywhere in Chester County or elsewhere in the Philadelphia area,” Magrogan said. “Counties here do their own restaurant inspections and they are the toughest inspections in the state.”Continue Reading County keeps up on restaurant inspections

The Patriot News
Monday, November 28, 2005
It’s great that the state plans to put the results of restaurant in spections online by the first of the year, but that only addresses part of a much larger problem.
The laws involving health inspections are antiquated and the combined state-local inspection system uneven. Something must be done. Having nearly 23 percent of licenses renewed without inspections, and some known violators remaining open is a public health crisis waiting to happen.
Those were among the findings of a study by the state auditor general’s office prompted by a hepatitis A outbreak at a western Pennsylvania restaurant in 2003. In addition to finding that 4,000 of the state’s 17,597 restaurants, clubs, bars and retail stores got relicensed despite not being inspected in two years, the report also found that inspectors rarely sought fines and did not suspend or revoke any licenses during the two-year period; useful information about unsanitary eating places was not readily available to the public; and there is poor coordination among the state Agriculture Department, which has oversight, and the 206 municipalities that do their own inspections.Continue Reading Larger restaurant problem

By Sara InÈs CalderÛn
The Brownsville Herald
November 22, 2005 — Disease, and how fast it can spread among young children, is a familiar topic at the Brownsville Community Health Center where free vaccines are being offered to protect the most vulnerable from illness.
“We can prevent people from becoming ill with these vaccines,” said Terry Davis, the director of nursing for the BCHC.
“We are a border town, and there is no barrier for disease. It can come from across the border,” Davis said. “The safest practice is to be immunized.”
The BCHC has a program that offers immunizations free for children, age 18 and under.Continue Reading Free immunizations offered for Brownsville children

November 21, 2005
Most people properly associate Salmonella with raw poultry. But according to an analysis of food-poisoning outbreaks by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), fresh produce is catching up with chicken as a major culprit of Salmonella infections. And, says CSPI, produce-related outbreaks tend to be larger than poultry-related outbreaks, and sicken more people, sometimes hundreds at a time.
In CSPI’s Outbreak Alert! database, which contains information on nearly 4,500 outbreaks between 1990 and 2003, produce triggered 554 outbreaks, sickening 28,315 people. Of those 554 outbreaks, 111 were due to Salmonella.Continue Reading Salmonella Outbreaks Linked to Produce on the Rise

11/18/2005
By: Bill Vidonic – Times Staff
The Pennsylvania auditor general’s office said Thursday that thousands of restaurants and fast-food facilities across the state were not inspected properly, but received license renewals anyway – information uncovered in an audit prompted by the 2003 hepatitis A outbreak in Beaver County.
According to Auditor General Jack Wagner, of the state’s 17,597 businesses that serve food and drinks – including restaurants, bars and retail stores – nearly 4,000 had their licenses renewed annually by the state Department of Agriculture, even though they hadn’t been inspected for at least two years.
In one instance, Wagner said, one business received a new license for six years without an inspection.Continue Reading State’s eatery watch too lax

Pittsburgh Tribune Review
By staff and wire reports
Friday, November 18, 2005
Thousands of Pennsylvania restaurants have been licensed in recent years without the required annual inspections for sanitation and health, according to a new state audit prompted by a deadly outbreak of hepatitis A at a Beaver County restaurant in 2003.
The state’s Department of Agriculture is responsible for overseeing restaurant sanitation in all but six of the state’s 67 counties. The audit found the department renewed the licenses of about 4,000 of more than 17,000 restaurants, bars and retail food purveyors even though they had not been inspected for at least two years.
In Allegheny County, the county health department is responsible for restaurant inspections. All restaurants in the county are inspected at least once a year, and no food distributor is licensed without an inspection, a county official said Thursday. Allegheny County was not included in the audit.Continue Reading Audit faults restaurant inspections

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Pittsburgh Business Times
11/17/2005
Nearly a quarter of the state’s 17,000 restaurants, bars and retail food purveyors have been licensed in recent years without annual health and sanitation inspections, the auditor general said Thursday.
About 4,000 eateries had license renewals even though they had not been inspected for at least two years, according to a two-year audit period that ended in December 2004.
A deadly outbreak of hepatitis A at a Beaver County Chi-Chi’s restaurant in 2003 brought about the audit.Continue Reading Pa. restaurant inspections lacking

By Marc Fortier
Staff writer
November 16, 2005
BEVERLY — On the same day that administrators were urging Briscoe Middle School students to wash their hands to prevent the spread of hepatitis A, some bathrooms at the school had no hot water, no soap and no paper towels.
Most of the school bathrooms have never had hot water; they’re not hooked up to the boiler. As for the soap and paper towels, Superintendent Jim Hayes said someone neglected to refill empty dispensers on Monday. They have since been refilled.
The situation came to light after Hayes sent a letter home to parents on Monday informing them of three confirmed cases of hepatitis A at the school in the past month. Most people who get the disease experience severe flu-like symptoms that pass in one to two weeks. It is rarely fatal.Continue Reading Sanitary conditions at Briscoe questioned

By Marc Fortier
Staff writer
11/14/2005
BEVERLY — Three Briscoe Middle School seventh-graders have tested positive for hepatitis A, a viral infection of the liver that is transmitted through direct contact from one person to another.
All three boys are recovering. Unlike hepatitis B and C, hepatitis A is rarely fatal. About three in 1,000

11/11/2005
By Crystal C. Bozek
Sentinel & Enterprise
LEOMINSTER — State officials have confirmed that a Johnny Appleseed School employee was diagnosed with a case of Hepatitis A.
But local health officials insist children and faculty are at a very minimal risk of catching the virus.
Hepatitis A, which has symptoms similar to the flu in children, is a contagious viral disease that makes the liver swell.
“We had someone who got ill. … We have a confined case,” Health Director Christopher Knuth said. “If we thought there was a risk to children, we’d be immunizing all of them.”Continue Reading School employee diagnosed with Hepatitis A