December 2, 2005
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Health officials suspect unwashed lettuce is responsible for a Los Angeles County surge in hepatitis A cases.
At least 60 people have fallen ill from the virus in the past three months. Officials haven’t been unable to link the outbreak to a particular farm or type of lettuce.
There was an outbreak in a downtown Los Angeles restaurant in September that affected 13 and another at an event catered by a Hollywood company in October where 19 fell ill. The other cases were scattered.
“We believe lettuce was the problem in these events,” said county health director Dr. Jonathan Fielding. “This is a problem that deserves real attention, and people eating in a restaurant should ask if the produce is being cleaned carefully.”

Fielding added that consumers should wash all salads – even those that are packaged and labeled as washed. Packaged lettuce has been linked to E. coli outbreaks, including a case this fall involving salads packaged by a division of Westlake Village-based Dole Food Co. in Salinas. The salads sickened more than a dozen people in Minnesota.
Hepatitis A symptoms include fever, chills, aches, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, dark urine and jaundice. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 7,653 acute cases in the United States in 2003. Most infected people recover with medical attention, but hepatitis A kills about 100 each year nationally.