LANSING, MI –The Ingham County Health Department has traced at least 200 norovirus illnesses to a Lansing Township restaurant. Customers who ate at Bravo Italian Kitchen in Eastwood Towne Center in early May have become ill with an apparent foodborne illness.
“Individuals who become ill with norovirus often experience severe abdominal cramping, vomiting, and diarrhea, which may become bloody,” said William Marler, an attorney and food safety advocate who has represented thousands of victims of foodborne illness outbreaks. “Dehydration can become a major problem, often times leading to hospitalization.”
“This is the second major norovirus outbreak to hit Lansing in 2006. Bravo’s owners and management should have learned from what happened at Carrabba’s and had measures in place to prevent outbreaks,” Marler continued. “It is a restaurant’s responsibility not just to serve food, but to serve safe food.”
Marler’s firm, Marler Clark, currently represents victims of the Carrabba’s norovirus outbreak, and has represented victims of nearly every major foodborne illness outbreak in the country in the last fifteen years. (See www.marlerclark.com)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 76 million Americans become ill with a foodborne illness every year. E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Campylobacter, Shigella, norovirus, and Listeria are seven of the most common foodborne pathogens. Marler Clark sponsors Web sites about each of these pathogens. See www.foodborneillness.com for more information.
Mr. Marler frequently donates his time to speak to food industry groups on issues regarding safe food, and is a principal in OutBreak, a not-for-profit business dedicated to informing companies about how to avoid foodborne illness outbreaks.