Foodborne illness outbreaks at restaurants often linked to sick workers, CDC finds
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sick employees are major contributors to the spread of foodborne illnesses at restaurants and other food establishments, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Tuesday.
From 2017 to 2019, the report found, around 40% of foodborne illness outbreaks with known causes were at least partly associated with food contamination by a sick or infectious worker. In 2017, for instance, Chipotle attributed a norovirus outbreak at its restaurant in Sterling, Virginia, to an employee who came to work while ill.
Norovirus, a stomach bug that causes vomiting and diarrhea, was the most common pathogen involved in foodborne illness outbreaks at U.S. restaurants during the years studied, according to the report. It accounted for 47% of the 800 outbreaks that the CDC identified. Salmonella — a bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps — accounted for nearly 19%.
The report recommended that restaurants develop and enforce policies that require sick workers to notify their manager if they have symptoms and to stay home if they're ill.
"Ill workers continue to play a substantial role in retail food establishment outbreaks, and comprehensive ill worker policies will likely be necessary to mitigate this public health problem," the report's authors wrote.
While most restaurants have at least some guidelines for sick workers, the CDC found that the policies are often incomplete.
Around 92% of the managers the CDC interviewed said their establishment had a policy requiring food workers to report symptoms if they feel sick, but just 66% said those policies were written. And just 23% said their restaurant's policy listed all five of the symptoms that guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration suggest warrant notifying a manager: vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, sore throat with fever or a lesion with pus.
More than 85% of the managers surveyed said their establishment had a policy that prevented sick employees from working, but just 62% of managers said the policy was written and 18% said their policy listed all five symptoms outlined by the FDA.
"It's not just about a sick employee. It's about when you have managers and district managers and store managers, etc., that aren't following health department guidelines," said Darin Detwiler, a Northeastern University food regulatory policy professor who wasn't involved in the research.
Detwiler said better paid sick leave policies — either mandated at the state level or instituted by individual companies — would make it easier to stop outbreaks. Some past research backs that up: A 2021 study, for instance, determined that Olive Garden's decision to expand paid sick leave coverage during the pandemic reduced the rate of front-line food service employees working while sick.
The CDC report, however, found that fewer than half of food establishments with outbreaks provided paid sick leave to at least one food worker. Fourteen states and Washington, D.C. have paid sick leave laws, according to the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank.
"If companies value their employees' health and their customers' health, then they would not be responding reactively to these things," Detwiler said. "They would be taking proactive steps to prevent these things from happening."
Foodborne diseases cause around 48 million illnesses and 3,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. According to Detwiler, most of those deaths could be prevented.
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There's the trouble. If workers can't have paid sick leave, they will come to work sick and contaminate the food they serve, or spread whatever they have directly to customers, not to mention their coworkers. When your choice is work sick or face eviction, you work sick.
I've worked sick because I wouldn't get paid unless I did. I had a severe case of bronchitis. Finally my manager told me to stay home for a week and don't come back to work until I recovered. I lost a week's pay but I did get better
This is the thing though - politicians favor businesses (or jobs) over workers, so they are less likely to support paid sick time to save employer labor costs. So that contributes to spread of more viruses which in turn increase health care costs. Since many of these people fall into the low wage end of the spectrum also contribute to higher unemployment and state medical programs. When it comes to labor we have not, as a society, learned yet that we can pay a little up front now OR we can can pay more later. Before anyone wants to claim no one wants to work anymore - they can kiss my ass - CEOs have been mouthing this mantra forever. They can fix it by offering good pay and a manageable work schedule.
I don't have to worry about it in my current job. I'm salaried with excellent bosses. The whole, "We are a family" thing is often BS, but here we really do try and look out for each other. I have no issues calling in sick or taking time off for appointments and vacations.
What's that phrase?
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Some times I think conservatives failed their high school math classes
I knew it, intuitively. Well, at least, since I used to watch "Kitchen Nightmares" (Chef Ramsey) and several other related shows. They would showcase poor quality food "productions" due to the 'unkept' restaurant conditions and poorly maintained (barely cold standard of) some commercial kitchens. From that I conclude: People have different standards of cleanliness. Despite what the law says, some bosses with be contrary and either act with expediency (easy way out) or just reason they can serve food commercially the same way they feed themselves privately.
It's not the same, nevertheless!
I don't want to eat improperly prepared foods, anymore than I want to have (sick) workers coughing or being lapse with standards around food I intend to pay to have prepared. Therefore, I stopped eating out--period. Exception: On the occasion that someone is so kind to bring me something from a restaurant for a family gathering, I always microwave or place it in the open on "High," for both!
Heat is your friend in these situations.
Gone are the days that I just consume whatever is sat in front of me that I don't prepare myself. Because, well, people are tricky with their standards and we will do well to remember this when eating food substances prepared by someone else. Of course, we are talking about the well-intentioned cooks/preparers. The malicious cooks/preparers mean us no good anyway.
And don't get me started on those young people food preparers you see at fast food locations: Blah! (Not all of them of course, but how to you know which one is the nasty one?) I don't even eat at burger joints or 'greasy spoon' locations!
It will be better when much of our food is made by robots.
Could be.
I do wonder if the robots can be programmed to wash their 'hands' appropriately.
Of course they can, they do some surgery today.
Oh wow, I did not know this was possible. Robots doing surgery! Are they assisted or unassisted? Help us, if a robot is programmed with a low-bar standard of cleanliness! In the time allotted before catching the 'issue' a great many people can be affected.
Well, this seems to be an attempt to pick low hanging fruit. The argument seems to be logical but overlooks staffing problems. Even paid sick leave won't prevent people from working while sick. These eateries don't overstaff so someone that is out for any reason affects the operation. And when understaffed, the workers likely won't get as many tips because the service suffers. Yes, paid sick leave is a good idea for individual workers but don't dismiss the affect on the entire staff.
We also know that people spread disease without being sick themselves. And paid sick leave doesn't even consider that aspect. The only practical way to address that aspect is through sanitation and proper food preparation.
Paid sick leave is a reasonable expectation for any employment. But trying to fearmonger the public using these scare tactics is complete and utter bullshit.
So your argument is we can't fix all the problems so why bother fixing any problem?
Tips should be for excellence in service NOT to replace shitty wages.
Not what I said.
Why is a labor issue within the purview of a public health agency? Why do we even need a Dept. of Labor?
Well then address the shitty wages and do away with tips. That's what labor policy is supposed to do.
Because laborers have health related issues. Shit sometimes overlap.
They should, but the Chamber of Commerce has more money to throw at lawmakers than the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
This seems obvious to me...
Since laborers have health related issues that leads toward a variety of conclusions including 'don't hire laborers with health issues' and 'don't eat at restaurants because laborers have health issues'.
Paid sick leave is a labor issue and not a health issue. The CDC has the authority to issue advisories to avoid eating at restaurants to prevent spread of disease. The CDC does not have authority require employers to provide paid sick leave. And paid sick leave is not the only means of preventing spread of disease.
I agree the Dept. of Labor should be pursuing paid sick leave for workers. But the CDC using scare tactics to pursue paid sick leave is not within the CDC's authority or purview. If sick workers are spreading disease then the CDC should be advising the public to avoid eating at restaurants; that's the job of the CDC.
People who say that kind of shit never waited tables
Yes, Nerm. Because an applicant who doesn't have the flu when he or she applies will surely never catch the flu while they're employed.
Paid sick leave is not the only way to address that. An employer can fire the worker if they catch the flu. An employer can coerce a worker to continue to work because of staffing needs. Obviously unfair and undesirable but those are real world alternatives.
There is nothing the CDC can do to address those unfair and undesirable alternatives. The CDC could prevent employers from coercing staff to work while sick but that doesn't mean the employer has to provide paid sick leave. And a CDC requirement doesn't eliminate the alternative of firing workers because they get sick.
and raise the number of homeless and/or the number on welfare.
I hope none of you ever get a foodborne illness. At your ages you will probably end up in the hospital. Hepatitis A, shigella, and norovirus is nothing to mess around with if you're 60 or older
I hope not! And to that end, I reheat everything I eat that I don't good myself (since Covid-19 got going in earnest 2020)! You never know who has (paid) it in for you nowadays! I don't want nobody's germs if I can help it!