It’s In the News: Foodborne Illness

Food poisoning is a common, yet distressing and sometimes life-threatening problem for
millions of people in the U.S., and throughout the world. People infected with foodborne
organisms may be symptom-free or may have symptoms ranging from mild intestinal discomfort
to severe dehydration and bloody diarrhea. Depending on the type of infection, people can even
die as a result of food poisoning.

For this assignment, you must locate and read a recent news story (less than 3 years old) about
a Foodborne illness outbreak. You may use a newspaper, magazine or website. Copy and
paste the questions and the website address (URL). Answer the following questions.

1. Name and date of publication and/or web address.

NBC News
August 26, 2022

2. Where did this outbreak occur?

Wendy’s in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan

3. Which pathogen was responsible?

E. coli

4. How many people did it affect?

84

5. What food/s was linked to this outbreak?

Romaine lettuce

6. How many people got sick or died?

38 were admitted to the hospital

7. What was identified as the cause of this outbreak?

Lettuce is consumed raw so there isn’t heat that can kill the bacterias on it even if it is washed.

8. What was the response of the authorities?

They investigated this more and disposed of the lettuce in the areas where this outbreak
happened.

9. What would have prevented this from happening?

The water used to water the lettuce when it was growing wasn’t healthy, so a way this could’ve
been prevented was making sure the water was 100% safe before it was used to water the
plants.
10. Go to www.cdc.gov and search and read about the pathogen that caused the outbreak you
read about. What are the typical causes, sources and symptoms of this pathogen?
E. coli are bacteria found in foods, the environment, and intestines of people and animals. It is a
large group of bacteria that is mostly harmless, but others can make you sick. Some symptoms
of this are fever, severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting.

11. Was this outbreak similar or different from the typical situation found at cdc.gov? Why or
why not? In what ways?
Yes it was a typical situation for E. coli. The majority of those affected had the symptoms and it
did seem to be caused by the lettuce because anyone that got sick had had a sandwich or
some other food item that had lettuce. However, the people who ate salads didn’t get sick
because they use different lettuce for burgers and salads.

12. What did you learn from this assignment?

I learned that when we eat fast food we put a lot of trust in the food we get there. We won’t
always know where it came from and how it was grown and taken care of so we put a lot of
stock and trust in it when we eat it because it could be contaminated and we wouldn’t know until
after we have eaten it and gotten sick.

13. Copy the article url (website) and paste in here.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/e-coli-outbreak-grows-wendys-customers-describ
e-food-poisoning-rcna44466