Food Sanitation Project Vasile Radu

The latest outbreak sickened at least 120 people in Boston, most of them students at Boston
College.
This included eight members of the college's basketball team. The team is scheduled to play
Providence this evening, and as of this morning, it's unclear whether the game will happen.
Most of the sick students reported eating at a nearby Chipotle Mexican Grill. (The college
updated the number of students sickened from 80 to 120 students at 12:26 p.m. on Wednesday.)
This provoked suspicions of a link to an earlier outbreak of E. coli poisoning in the Pacific
Northwest traced to Chipotle restaurants there.
It appears, however, that the two outbreaks are unrelated. According to preliminary tests, the
Boston College students were sickened by another disease-causing organism, called norovirus.
Norovirus is sometimes overlooked, because it is less likely to kill you than disease-causing
forms of E. Coli or salmonella. But it is by far the most common source of foodborne illness,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chipotle has closed the restaurant near Boston College while the investigation continues.
Government inspectors cited the company for allowing an employee to work there while ill last
week, although the illness was not specified. Norovirus is highly contagious and is generally
spread from person to person
On the other side of the country, meanwhile, prominent food safety lawyer Bill Marler tells us by
email that an outbreak of foodborne illness has dampened spirits in his own office building. Last
week, 200 people complained that they didn't feel well after a catered event in that building.
Three went to the hospital. They were infected with norovirus.
Today, all the restaurants in that building are closed, including a Starbucks. "People look a bit
uncomfortable on crowded elevators," Marler writes.