Local food workers don’t need vaccines

When given the choice between overreaction and reason, an Allegheny County Health Department… When given the choice between overreaction and reason, an Allegheny County Health Department committee chose reason, and decided not to require Allegheny County food service workers to get hepatitis A shots.

According to yesterday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this decision comes after an investigation into last year’s outbreak at the Chi-Chi’s restaurant at Beaver Valley Mall – in Beaver County, not Allegheny. The outbreak was eventually linked to green onions from Mexico, not employee behavior.

Given that hepatitis A is a nationwide problem, considering that there were outbreaks in Georgia, Tennessee and in many western states, companies should be worried about their employees. But requiring mass vaccination in a county where there haven’t been outbreaks is overreacting – particularly when Chi-Chi’s has stopped using green onions altogether.

Hepatitis A can be contracted by eating contaminated food that has either been handled by someone with hepatitis A or someone whose hands have been contaminated with the virus, according to the Food and Drug Administration’s Web site.

People are now aware of the danger hepatitis A poses – and should continue to educate themselves of food’s potential dangers.

The fact is, eating anything comes with a certain amount of risk – there are high mercury levels in fish; botulism in canned goods; bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cows; Salmonella and E. coli in undercooked meat; and, released yesterday on Reuters, higher arsenic levels in chicken than expected. It’s a wonder people haven’t tried subsisting on Styrofoam and double-filtered water.

Keeping people informed is a better method than requiring a select group to get vaccines. That said, if companies are concerned about hepatitis A, then they should provide vaccines gratis, thus gaining safer employees and good press.

Hepatitis A is widespread in Mexico and is often carried into the United States by people going back and forth over the border, according to a Health Department spokesman quoted in the Post-Gazette.

In fact, some doctors consider it to be enough of a threat to call for vaccines in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their report recommends vaccines for high-risk groups, including people living in western states, drug users and people living in counties with a high incidence of hepatitis A – of which Allegheny County isn’t one. So kudos to the committee for picking the reasonable choice and not requiring unnecessary vaccinations.