Apparently, food poisoning spares no one. Not even if you’re a ball player.
This is a story is reminiscent of the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings basketball rivalry. Lakers come to town, get food poisoning and then play their arch rivals to a close game. This time it’s Stanford and Arizona State.
Stanford went into its game Saturday against Arizona State with a handicap after six players came down with food poisoning, according to an article in the Tucson Citizen. As expected, the Cardinals lost to Arizona, playing without two of their starters – Mitch Johnson and Fred Washington — who were among the six afflicted players.
Well, it was close and the game went into overtime, but still, Arizona won 85-80 in overtime.
Many of the sick players were on IVs for most of Friday, according to the Tucson Citizen article. Apparently, they and others “ate bad chicken.” Many played despite their illness.
“I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. What can you do?” said Stanford coach Trent Johnson. “The game is going to be played no matter what…We’re like boxers. We get knocked down, but we get back up.”
The food poisoning saga has been ongoing since late last year with what started with the bagged spinach E.Coli outbreak. Since then, it has been a virtual circus – from the Peter Pan peanut butter salmonella outbreak that has reportedly claimed three lives to botulism and listeria scares to rats running around in a New York City Taco Bell. There was also an Oscar Mayer chicken recall, but it is not clear whether the Stanford players were sickened by that particular product.
And in the midst of all this mess, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reportedly reducing the number of inspections. The excuse, as usual, is: “We don’t have the money to do more.”
Unless the agencies that are responsible for inspecting restaurants, food service areas and manufacturing facilities step up the quality and quantity of their annual inspections, I don’t think we can expect to see a remarkable difference. The outbreaks will only increase in frequency and affect more people.
The problem with food-borne illnesses is that there is very little consumers can do about food-poisoning. It is the people to prepare food who must take care and be responsible enough to adhere to safety standards.
At Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, we have received numerous inquiries about the recent peanut butter salmonella scare. If you or a loved one has recently been sickened by a tainted food product, please call us for a free consultation. We will help, even if you are a Kings’ fan. After all, without the Kings, us Lakers fans would not have an arch rival.