Recently, and for good reason, late-night television hosts have gotten lots of laughs at the expense of a one inch piece of finger—uncooked—"found" in a bowl of Wendy’s chili. Claims and counterclaims have flown, but most indications point to, at best, a grotesque hoax, and perhaps more appropriately, an illegal act.
That some people see fit to bring such bogus, unsupportable claims of foodborne illness, much less expend the time and effort necessary to conjure up such a ridiculous ploy is unfortunate not only for those directly involved, but also for the people, often the very young and the very old, who really have been injured by dangerous foodborne pathogens. As a lawyer who has represented thousands of children sickened or killed by pathogenic foodborne bacteria and viruses, I am uniquely situated to see and comprehend the backlash that this recent "finger-in-my-chili" case has had. It has done nothing but drain precious resources, further erode faith in our civil justice system, and waste everyone’s time. Perhaps most importantly, baseless claims like these divert health officials’ and company Food Safety Directors’ time and attention from the truly important issues—i.e. food-safety concerns—to the truly absurd.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 76 million cases of foodborne illness occur in the United States every year. Reduced to a simpler statistic, this means that one in four Americans will contract a foodborne illness every year by eating food that has been contaminated with such lethal pathogens as E. coli, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Campylobacter, Shigella, Norovirus, and Listeria. Approximately 325,000 of these individuals will be hospitalized, and 5,000 will die.
Although the media coverage of this event is understandable when something as sensational as this happens, the food industry needs to keep this sudden attention in perspective. Such bogus claims are greatly over-emphasized. An excessive focus on the melodramatic aspects of this case may lead to the denial or ignoring of legitimate complaints of foodborne illness. Denying legitimate claims in turn increases the likelihood that restaurants and food manufacturers will overlook real problems with food safety, such as bacterial or viral contamination of the products they sell, and the accompanying health code violations, sick customers, costly litigation, and public relations headaches that necessarily follow.
The food industry needs to keep its eyes on the real issues – protecting the public from real illnesses. There have been successes. A recent report (2005) released by the CDC in collaboration with the FDA and USDA showed important declines in foodborne infections due to common bacterial pathogens in 2004. From 1996-2004, the incidence of E. coli O157:H7 infections decreased 42 percent. Campylobacter infections decreased 31 percent, Cryptosporidium dropped 40 percent, Yersinia decreased 45 percent and Salmonella infections dropped 8 percent.
The goal of the food service industry is to produce high quality products that sell well without injuring consumers. With this goal in mind, therefore, everybody’s interests are better served by the fair and efficient assessment of such claims, by health and restaurant officials alike, than by the extreme reaction so often seen. Then, if decided that a claim is bogus, the restaurant industry can and should fight it. But when a claim has merit, it is better to treat a customer fairly and learn from mistakes. A calm and reasoned perspective will help the restaurant industry keep its eye on the bottom line as opposed to looking for the finger in the chili.