Posted on: Friday, May 20, 2005

Contaminated carrots linked to passengers' illness

By Tara Godvin
Associated Press

Contaminated carrots served on several flights out of Honolulu likely caused 45 people to suffer food poisoning across 22 states, Japan, Australia and American Samoa, state epidemiologist Paul Effler said yesterday.

Also yesterday, a lawsuit was filed in state Circuit Court in Honolulu against airline caterer Gate Gourmet Inc., which included the carrots in meals served last Aug. 22-24.

The same company, based in Virginia and Switzerland, was sent a warning letter by the federal Food and Drug Administration on April 21 citing violations found in a February inspection of its facility in Honolulu such as "pink slimy substance" dripping onto the conveyor of the pot washing machine, live cockroaches and flies and mold growing on the windows of a refrigerator.

The company employs 230 people in Honolulu, providing meals for Northwest, Delta, United, Hawaiian and Aloha airlines.

The company, which has locations in 30 countries, says it responded quickly to the April letter and that the investigation of the August illnesses has not been able to definitely identify the source of the contamination.

According to the lawsuit, Ernie Lyon of Orlando, Fla., became ill with symptoms including nausea, diarrhea, cramps, fever and tremors three days after a Northwest Airlines flight from Honolulu to Minneapolis.

A stool sample taken from Lyon on a visit to an emergency room tested positive for Shigella sonnei bacteria, the lawsuit said.

Severe cases of shigellosis can be so serious that patients, particularly young children and the elderly, need to be hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Others may show no symptoms at all but could pass the bacteria on to others.

No sum was mentioned in the lawsuit, which asks for actual and punitive damages.

Changes at the company's Honolulu facility included repairing equipment, training employees, cleaning, painting, hiring additional janitors, and changing local top management, company spokesman Jon Bronson said in an e-mail late yesterday.

"As a result of these efforts, our Honolulu facility passed its most recent FDA inspection conducted this week," Bronson said.

While an investigation by the state Health Department and the FDA narrowed the likely source down to carrots contained in salads served by Gate Gourmet, investigators don't know when, where or how the carrots were contaminated, Effler said in an interview.

The investigation began with a phone call to Effler Sept. 3 from Japanese health officials regarding seven Shigella sonnei infections. Those infections were then linked with cases elsewhere. Each person had taken recent flights on a variety of airlines but each flight had a common caterer — Gate Gourmet.

Deficient food handling practices were found at the company's Honolulu site during the investigation and recommendations were made to change them, Effler said.

However, the investigation did not determine that Gate Gourmet was the source of the contamination. Fifty-six stool samples taken from food handlers turned up negative.

The investigation "indicates that carrots by Gate Gourmet were the likely source," Effler said. "It doesn't indicate that contamination occurred at Gate Gourmet or in the field where carrots were harvested or anywhere along the production chain. That's what we don't have."

However, Effler said he believes the investigation did have a major finding.

"If you're talking about bio-security and food safety, you really need to think of the airline distribution system as a real possibility, as a real vulnerability. And we think that this outbreak demonstrates that," he said.