Are employees forgetting to wash their hands?
According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, restaurants are still failing to complete basic practices that would increase food safety and prevent foodborne illnesses.
The CDC stated over 48 million cases of all foodborne illness outbreaks are associated with restaurants, delis, banquet facilities, schools and other institutions. About 3,000 cases of foodborne illness are fatal.
Food preparation, mishandling practices and avoiding basic health policies such as washing one's hand, are often not reported during an outbreak, but play a major role in many of the foodborne illness cases. The CDC stated that little is known about the "environmental factors that can lead to a foodborne illness outbreak."
"Inspectors have not had a formal system to capture and report the underlying factors that likely contribute to foodborne outbreaks or a way to inform prevention strategies and implement routine corrective measures in restaurants, delis and schools to prevent future outbreaks," said Carol Selman, head of the CDC's Environmental Health Specialist Network team at the National Center for Environmental Health.
The CDC found many workers failed to wash their hands and a large number of restaurants allow sick workers to come into contact with food.
According to the Nation's Restaurant News, 20 percent of 491 restaurant food workers "worked at least one shift in the past year despite being sick with vomiting or diarrhea." Both conditions can lead to foodborne illness.
When surveyed by the CDC workers admitted they were afraid to leave their jobs short-staffed and many feared being fired.
"The number of outbreaks at those sorts of restaurants have diminished substantially," said Bill Marler, a personal injury attorney and foodborne illness expert who frequently files lawsuits on behalf of victims. "The difference is resources and management."
The CDC reported that many cases of foodborne illness were results of failing to follow proper procedures when handling poultry such as ground beef and chicken, and leafy greens.
Nation's Restaurant News reported after studying 385 restaurants where workers handle ground beef, 62 percent showed that workers did not wash their hands after handling raw meat; 50 percent failed to realize the meat was stored in the proper temperature and; 80 percent did not use a thermometer to measure the temperature.
Are you concerned about the way food is handled in restaurants?
