Food Poisoning - Prevent & Recognize Food Poisoning, Food Borne Illness Hazards

Custom Search
   

 

How To Report Your Food Poisoning Illness to Your

Local Public Health Department

Last Updated: June 2, 2010

Published: August 19, 2008 by Michael Doom, REHS

 

The doctor is required, in most cases, to report confirmed communicable illnesses to the local or state department of public health. This includes food poisoning or food-borne illness microorganisms. If you go to the doctor with food-borne illness symptoms, he or she may very likely take a stool sample, urine sample and possibly blood tests.  If the doctor, for whatever reason, does not report your illness, or you do not go to the doctor and you suspect you have or had experienced food-borne illness symptoms, I strongly recommend contacting your local public health department to report it yourself.

It is estimated that only 4% to 10% of of food-borne illness cases are reported(1). This is unfortunate because the local public health inspector conducts routine inspections of a food facility maybe 2 times a year on average, and the public or consumers really can be a second set and a more frequent set of eyes.  By reporting your illness, you may very likely be saving others (as well as yourself if you continue to patronize this facility) from experiencing a similar painful episode.

You can find the contact phone number for your Environmental Health Food Inspection Program in your local phone book either under the county or city government services pages, or online, or by calling information.  Depending on the size of your local government, you may be switched around or have to call multiple numbers before you get to the right person that documents and investigates "suspected foodborne illness or food poisoning cases".

Many government jurisdictions now make it possible to report your illness online.  Do a search online for your local agency with the search words "report foodborne illness Your City or County".  For example, if I type in a Google search (with or without quotes) "report foodborne illness los angeles", the first page that comes up is the LA County Public Health Report a Problem Page.  This page allows me to report any type of environmental health problem and has a link highlighted on it to take me to a specific web page to note all the details on my foodborne illness.  If no web site is available to report online, this search should at least direct you to a phone number to call.

For anyone who does wish to report a Los Angeles County suspected foodborne illness online, click on the following link: https://www.visualcmr.net/webvcmr/pages/public/pub_FBI_Report.aspx

 

Before making the call, have all the following information ready:

  • Your name, address and daytime phone number.

  • Where did you eat the suspected food.  If you ate the food at a restaurant, what is the name and address and date you ate there. Did anyone else eat the same food and come down with similar symptoms.

  • When (date and approximate time) did you consume the food?

  • Be ready to give symptoms and the amount of time, in hours, between eating the suspected food and previous meals and the time you first started feeling the symptoms.

  • Try to have a listing of your previous few meals in addition to telling them what food you believe made you ill. It's possible that you could be blaming your illness on the wrong meal.
  • If you've been to a doctor or hospital, they may ask for the doctor's name and phone number who treated you.
  • If the suspect food is a commercial product, have the container in hand so you can refer to the label while you're on the phone.
  • Try to remember when and where you bought the product. The name and address of the store is needed.

 

OTHER STEPS TO TAKE

If you save any food, whether from a restaurant or prepackaged food from a market, it is prudent to seal the product in a plastic bag marked "Danger" and keep it refrigerated and out of reach of children.

If the food is from a restaurant, it is unlikely that the local agency will take or use that unless it is part of an outbreak - when generally more than one or two people have come down with a similar illness from the same food or establishment.

If the food is packaged and is something you purchased at the local market, the agency you want to call depends on the type of food.

For meats, poultry, egg and milk products call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) or go their web site at www.fsis.usda.gov/home/index.asp

For complaints about food products that do not contain meat or poultry, i.e. cereals, fish, produce, fruit, fruit juice, pastas, cheeses, etc., call or write to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA). Check your local phonebook under U.S. Government, Health and Human Services to find an FDA office in your area. The FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition can be reached at 1-888-723-3366 or go to their web site at:  www.cfsan.fda.gov/ov/

For reporting any violations you observed at a restaurant, catering truck, street vendor, market or other commercial food facility, be ready with the name and address or the facility, the date you observed the violation and give a brief explanation of what you observed.  Also, be ready to give your name, address and phone number, which should remain confidential.  By giving your contact information the inspector can contact you after the inspection or investigation has been made to let you know what was observed and what kind of action was taken.

One last, or first step, you can take is to report your illness into a national database registry that can help determine if your illness is part of a larger food poisoning outbreak. The web site that can do this as well as help refer your information to the local public health department is called the National Database of Food Poisoning. Click on this link to learn more.

 

REFERENCES

1.  United States Centers for Disease Control "Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States" http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no5/mead.htm   Referencing: Taylor JP, Perdue JN. The changing epidemiology of human brucellosis in Texas. Am J Epidemiol 1989;130:160-5.

About the Author

Michael Doom worked as a Registered Environmental Health Specialist (REHS) for Los Angeles County for more than 21 years.  For most of these years he worked as a field inspector and Supervising Senior REHS in the retail food inspection programs. His experience within Los Angeles County has taken him to some of the smallest “mom and pop” restaurants and markets in the poorest areas of south Los Angeles, as well as to the largest facilities and affluent areas on the west side. He has literally conducted thousands of inspections of numerous types of restaurants, food markets, warehouses, events, and more; educated hundreds, if not more than a thousand, food facility owners, managers and employees on food sanitation and food safety , and how to prevent food poisoning hazards; has supervised more than 50 field inspectors that were responsible for an inventory of food facilities larger than many U.S. states.

Mr. Doom has a B.S. in Biology from Loyola Marymount University, an REHS with the state of California, holds a Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential from the Project Management Institute, and a Master's Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.  Mr. Doom continuously works to expand his knowledge and experience in the subject of food safety, sanitation and food poisoning prevention.

He can be reached at Mike@foodpoisoningprevention.com