Fat Duck won't face charges - 'I'll never set foot in there again' says food poisoning victim
The Telegraph reports this morning that Heston Blumenthal and the Fat Duck restaurant – home to 529 cases of norovirus earlier this year – will not face criminal charges despite failures in reporting illness and what appears to be an overall lack of food safety awareness.
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Windsor and Maidenhead Council said that although the restaurant could have taken greater steps to combat the norovirus outbreak, there was insufficient evidence to take formal action.
Jim Rosenthal, the television sports presenter, who was among those affected after dining at the restaurant to celebrate his wife Chrissy's birthday, said,
“I'm disappointed but not surprised. Unfortunately, the council has probably been forced to take a pragmatic view and decide against what would probably be the enormous cost of mounting a case against someone who can afford the best lawyers." If it was a café at a lay-by doing what he did they would have been taken to court long ago. Chrissy and I will never set foot in there again.”
Boxing promoter Frank Warren, who is also still awaiting compensation, said,
"The whole way they have handled this has been a disaster from start to finish. To hear that the council isn't going to take him on doesn't surprise me – it's just because of who he is rather than what he's done or not done.”
A spokeswoman for the Duckster claimed that the HPA report was "flawed" and continued to blame others.
“We are not surprised by the local authority's decision, given that the Health Protection Agency's report clearly concludes that responsibility for the outbreak lies with a shellfish supplier and the local water authority after its shellfish was contaminated with the norovirus. Regarding the assumptions made about The Fat Duck in the report, both our own experts and those appointed by our insurers believe them to be flawed.”
Someone's looking for some advertizing dollars: UK's Independent says norovirus at Fat Duck was 'a freakish occurrence;' check toilets for cleanliness
I first went to London in 1993. I was once again a graduate student, someone looked after the older two girls, and we took 6-week-old Braunwynn.
I loved to get a morning coffee – which cost about $895.58 pounds or something outrageous -- and reading the broadsheet newspaper, The Independent.
About that time I also realized, The Independent sorta sucked.
Rob Sharp writes in today’s Independent that Robin Hancock – not the musician, but the proprietor of Wright Brothers, an oyster wholesaler which supplies top restaurants – says the risks are overblown. In fact, he says, oysters should be enjoyed because they are full of vitamins, iron, calcium and are low in cholesterol.
"I would like to set the record straight," he says. "food poisoning from oysters is something from the past. We sell four to five tonnes of oysters a week – that's nearly 60,000 or 2.5 million a year – and we get maybe four or five cases of food poising in that time. What happened at the Fat Duck was somewhat of a freakish occurrence." Several thousand fishermen breathe a sigh of relief.
Fat Duck was 529. That’s more than four or five.
Hancock recommends the old adage of "checking to see if the toilets are clean" when venturing into a restaurant; general levels of hygiene can be a useful clue.
Not useful.
“We should not make too much of the viral thing; it is exceptionally rare. Again, I think the staff at the Fat Duck – where they are obsessed with a clinical, almost scientific preparation of food and are more than aware of these processes – were incredibly unlucky."
Or incredibly sloppy.
Florida man dies from raw oysters
As I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of raw seafood.
Medical examiners in Florida say a Florida man who was a passenger and died suddenly following a high speed chase with police, had a deficient liver and was killed by Vibrio vulnificus in raw oysters he had eaten earlier.
Meanwhile, Mahogany clams served at Hinerwadel's Grove in North Syracuse, New York, have been found to contain two bacteria, including campylobacter. So far, 236 people have been sickened. The investigation continues.
Don't eat poop - and if it's on oysters at least cook it
Xinhua News Agency reports,
“A total of 141 people in Macao were food-poisoned after eating polluted raw oysters in local restaurants, the Special Administration Region's health authorities announced on Monday.
“The food-poisoning outbreak was firstly reported on Aug. 28 when a number of people fell sick after eating raw oysters served in a buffet restaurant in the Venetian Macao Resort, and more cases were later reported in restaurants in the Sands Hotel, Golden Dragon Hotel and the Macao Tower, according to the SAR's Disease Control and Prevention Center of the Macao Health Bureau ( SSM).
“The SSM said in its latest press release that eight new cases were reported on Monday, the victims of which dined in the four restaurants mentioned above and ate raw oysters, but it also confirmed that those victims have fully recovered from the illness.
“The problem oysters served in the four restaurants came from the same supplier in Hong Kong, according to the SSM, which has ordered the four eateries to stop providing raw oysters at their buffets.
“The food-poisoning was caused by Norwalk virus that was communicable through food, vomit, and excreta among human beings, said the SSM, adding that the victims comprised locals as well as tourists from Hong Kong and elsewhere.”
