Food Safety Magazine, June/July 2012

Crisis Management:
How to Handle
Outbreak Events
By Benjamin Chapman, Ph.D., Audrey Kreske, Ph.D.,
and Doug Powell, Ph.D.
Public health officials call a produce packer and tell them that
a cluster of 60 illnesses has one thing in common—their
product. Illnesses have been popping up for weeks, entered
into state and national databases, and after a couple
of rounds of interviews with the victims
(some still hospitalized), statistics and
epidemiology point to the packer as the source.
The investigators are on their way to the
facility; they would like to see how clean and
sanitized the packing lines are, how well the
packer’s dump tank chlorinator is working and
analyze all transaction documents to determine where
all incoming product came from and where it all went.
There are sick children, chatter on Twitter, press inquiries
and angry customers looking for refunds. Additionally, all of
this happens within 24 hours of the initial call. Within 3 days,
the number of linked illnesses triples, lawsuits have been filed
and the commodity has become the punch line in late-night talk show monologues.
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