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Press Release: Flour Tortillas and Foodborne Outbreaks in Schools

Flour Tortillas and Foodborne Outbreaks in America’s Schools
CONTACT INFORMATION:
      Fred Pritzker
      Pritzker| Ruohonen & Associates, P.A.
      612-338-0202
      info@pritzkerlaw.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pritzker | Ruohonen (www.pritzkerlaw.com)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (January 20, 2006)–Health officials in the Peoria, Illinois, school district recently hit by two separate incidences of children falling ill after eating at school cafeterias are looking at all of the foods involved, one of which is flour tortillas. Interestingly, the January 13, 2006, edition of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) has an article entitled “Multiple Outbreaks of Gastrointestinal Illness among School Children Associated with Consumption of Flour Tortillas --- Massachusetts, 2003—2004.” Read the article at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5501a3.htm

The MMWR article describes 10 outbreaks of vomiting by school children in Massachusetts. All of the outbreaks involved flour tortillas. According to the article, “The clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of the outbreaks were similar to those of previously reported outbreaks of vomiting associated with burritos served at multiple schools in the United States in 1997—1998.” There is no clear answer to why or how the flour tortillas could have made the children sick; however, “symptoms suggested either a biotoxin or chemical agent.”

Peoria County health officials are looking at the clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of their outbreaks to see if there is a connection to flour tortillas and the past outbreaks discussed in the MMWR article.

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