Jimmy John’s customers sickened by salmonella: Yet another Jimmy John’s salmonella outbreak linked to contaminated sprouts
Sprouts that may have come from growers in Minnesota have sickened customers at an Illinois Jimmy John’s restaurant. The Illinois Department of Health says that customers in multiple locations became ill after eating sandwiches that contained the contaminated sprouts.
The state health department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), all reviewed the produce as well as other items consumed at the restaurants and determined that the sprouts were probably the food item that caused the illness in the customers.
Sprouts have been removed as a menu item in all the Jimmy John’s restaurants in Illinois as a food safety precaution. Investigators are also looking into complaints about restaurants customers becoming ill at the chain’s locations in Wisconsin.
The health department has advised Jimmy John’s to not allow employees with diarrhea symptoms to work in their restaurants. Salmonella bacteria live in the intestinal tracts of humans and animals. Food poisoning can be caused by food becoming contaminated by the bacteria.
Salmonella bacteria can also be caused by an employee not washing his or her hands properly and then transmitting the contamination to another person or to food products. The contamination of sprouts could have been caused at the restaurant by an employee or could have originated at the growers’ end, through another means of contamination.
Anyone who has eaten sprouts on a Jimmy John’s sandwich should look for signs of salmonella that include headache, muscle aches, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, chills, fever, nausea and dehydration. Symptoms can appear within hours or they can take days to manifest.
A person suffering the symptoms of food poisoning should drink plenty of water to stay hydrated while they recover. Anyone with severe symptoms should see a health official.
For more information about the Jimmy John’s salmonella outbreak or salmonella and sprouts contamination, contact the food poisoning lawyers at 1-888-335-4901.
