Environmental Medicine Integrating a Missing Element into Medical Education (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Case Study 33: Pesticide Food Poisoning from Contaminated Watermelons in California, 1985
Case Study 33: Pesticide Food Poisoning from Contaminated Watermelons in California, 1985
Pages 588-595
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From page 588... ...
Many of the case reports involved multiple illnesses associated with the same melon among unrelated individuals. Seventeen individuals required hospitalization.
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From page 589... ...
Within 2 h, calls to 10 California poison control centers, 20 selected emergency departments, and 1 county health department had identified an additional 12 presumed cases of pesticide illness related to consumption of watermelons. This included a group of 4 individuals in Bakersfield who had eaten a striped melon purchased at a roadside stand, a group of 6 individuals who had eaten a striped melon from a Los Angeles-area supermarket warehouse, and 2 individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area who had eaten green melons purchased at different retail stores.
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From page 590... ...
The second stage, after July 10, involved sampling melons from fields that had passed the certification program. The theoretical ability of the field certification sampling plan to detect a single, highly contaminated field was quite good, but given the practical limit of detection of ASO, the necessary compositing of samples, and the large number of fields involved, it was still possible that some contaminated melons might have reached retail markets.
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From page 591... ...
Figure 1 shows the epidemic curve of probable watermelon illness reports within California by date of purchase of melons. The first probable case was reported for a melon purchased June 16; reports rose sharply thereafter.
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From page 592... ...
1. Watermelon aldicarb illness reports by case definition and melon purchase date California, 1986.
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From page 593... ...
.5 With well over 1 000 reports of probable pesticide illness from within and outside California, this episode ranks as the largest recorded North American outbreak of foodborne pesticide illness. In the past, intentional or inadvertent misapplication of aldicarb to cucumbers and mint was associated with similar, though more limited, outbreaks.
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From page 594... ...
However, underreporting at the beginning of the outbreak may have been substantial, given the long Fourth of July weekend and that the active surveillance system required 1 wk to implement fully. For example, the poison control centers were initially so overwhelmed with calls that they often did not have time to record complete reports; thus, many cases may have been lost to follow-up during the first week of the outbreak.
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