Health Law

Wedding Horror: 30 ill in Roseville, California

By Drew Falkenstein

Reno's News 10 reported this morning on a rather strange foodpoisoning event at a wedding in Roseville, California.  According to the story, 30 people fell severely ill with foodpoisoning symptoms, and 6 had to be hospitalized.  In fact, it appears that the people became ill while actually in attendance at the Light of the Gospel Church in Roseville, and that the Roseville Fire Department was called to the scene to find the 30 victims suffering from severe symptoms. 

Foodpoisoning events like this are obviously commonplace, and wedding receptions are a common venue for those events to occur.  The odd thing about this particular incident is that so many people apparently became ill during the reception.  Most bacteria and viruses that cause foodpoisoning don't cause symptoms for at least a number of hours after ingestion, and many times a number of days.  Norovirus immediately comes to mind as a possibility for this outbreak, as it has a relatively short incubation period.  But even norovirus' incubation period is not so universally short as to make 30 people ill within such a short period.  Possibly another form of contamination?  Heavy metals, cleaning solutions?  It will be interesting to follow this one.
 

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on October 03, 2010 (boomark / email).