LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles health officials are investigating a norovirus outbreak after around 80 people were sickened after eating raw oysters at an event to showcase the city’s best restaurants.
The Los Angeles County Department of Health said that people got sick after attending an event on Dec. 3, and that oysters have been recalled.
Those sickened attended the Los Angeles Times “101 Best Restaurants” event at the Hollywood Palladium, a theater on Sunset Boulevard, the newspaper reported.
The Times event was to be attended by the some of the city’s best chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants, the newspaper announced in promoting it.
The recalled oysters are Fanny Bay Select oysters and Fanny Bay XS oysters from Pacific Northwest Shellfish Co. with a pack date of Nov. 25 or later, the health department said.
The recall was issued on Dec. 13. A recall notice from the California Department of Health said that the oysters were harvested from multiple sites in British Columbia. It said the oysters were also under the brand name Buckley Bay and Royal Miyagi.
The Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 18 warned restaurants and retailers in 14 states and the District of Columbia to not serve or sell oysters recently harvested in parts of British Columbia because of potential norovirus contamination.
The Los Angeles County health department said it is continuing to investigate the outbreak.
Norovirus causes vomiting and diarrhea. Other symptoms can include stomach pain, body aches and fever. Symptoms usually appear 12 to 48 hours after exposure, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says on its website. It’s the most common foodborne illness in the United States, it said.
Oysters and other shellfish absorb the virus in their bodies when sewage gets into oceans and the virus is introduced into the water that the shellfish live in, the Washington state Department of Health says in its warnings about the illness.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Times did not immediately respond to a NBC News request for comment late Friday afternoon, but spokesperson Hillary Manning told the Times in its own report on the issue that a Santa Monica shellfish company sourced the oysters and provided it to one of the restaurants.
“We have produced culinary events for many years and take food safety very seriously,” Manning wrote in an email to the Times. “As is the case with each of our events, we had protocols in place and, based on an inspection from the L.A. County Department of Public Health, we were in compliance with all relevant safety standards. We also know the care that each chef and restaurant takes in preparing and serving food to our community.”
The 101 Best Restaurants List was created in 2014 by the newspaper’s restaurant critic Jonathan Gold, who won a Pulitzer Prize and who was a local celebrity himself. Gold died in 2018 at the age of 57.
