Let's be clear... I didn't say symptoms couldn't start that rapidly. I said anything less than 8 hours was rare, and caused by toxins released by the bacteria into the contaminated food. I also pointed out that people often mistakenly associate their most recent meal with the source of the contamination.
The WebMD reference indicates that symptoms "generally" begin within 2 - 6 hours of consumption, but this is contrary to most other online sources and the food preparation and universal precautions courses I have completed. Most other sources indicate that rapid onset of symptoms is rare, and that many such cases are a result of people incorrectly associating their most recent meal with the source of the contamination.
As for me "contradicting" the report of a "doctor." Frankly, we don't have a doctor contributing to this discussion. What we have is somebody who says a doctor told him something, and that a test was conducted on the actual meal he ate indicating it was the source of his infection. Honestly, there's really no way to prove or disprove an anecdotal report from a random message-board participant. Doctors, especially those in ERs, do what they can to treat the patients but are not experts on the sources of food-borne contamination. You'd be better off talking to a licensed chef or food-preparation expert than a doctor if you want accurate information on that topic. In the ER, the patient reports that they ate at a particular restaurant earlier that day, and now they're sick. Doctor says, "okay, that must be the source of the contamination." The majority of such reports which are investigated result in the restaurant being found not to be the source of the illness, because in reality, it was a meal eaten elsewhere and earlier which caused the problem. The doctor is never informed that his guess (based on the patient's guess) as to the source of the contamination was incorrect.
We don't know what the particular contaminant was in this case. Usually "bad chicken" is contaminated with salmonella. Salmonella is well-understood, and it incubates in 1-2 days. However, it's possible that this particular chicken was contaminated with something else. It's also possible that a culture would reveal salmonella on the chicken from the restaurant, but the patient was actually sick due to a different contamination from an earlier meal. The problem with bacterial cultures as tests for food contamination is that a culture is designed specifically to reveal the presence of even trace amounts of a contaminant; the culture medium is nutrient-rich and will allow a very small number of organisms to rapidly multiply and reveal their presence. But trace amounts of such contaminants will almost never make a person sick. Heck, trace amounts of most contaminants, including e-coli, are present in most people's intestines all the time. It's only when they grow out of control that they make people sick. So a culture of a piece of chicken, even if positive, does not provide a strong case for it being the cause of a particular illness, especially when taken in light of the fact that symptoms appeared so soon after the suspected meal.
I'll admit that the tone of my more recent replies was negative, but it was in reaction to the negative tone RescueRanger used in his very first reply, accusing me of being a "wannabe" doctor. I'm sharing information on a topic I know about through formal training and experience with food preparation and an undergrad degree in biology.
The truth is that a "simple web search" will reveal that most sources back me up on this. That's why I suggested RescueRanger do a search and report back. Yes, you can cherry-pick a few quotes from a few articles that seem to contradict what I'm saying, but the majority agree.
I'm out of this discussion now. You (anybody) can believe whatever you want to believe, and it won't make a bit of difference in the grand scheme of things.
Have a magical day,
David
That's not right. The POR staff didn't correct that for you?
Don't ask me why I do this......I was SOOOOOOOOOOO looking forward to eating my way around the parks and now I feel like I should just stick to water and granola bars.
(kidding.....I know you are a fiesty one!
)
All these buffet horror stories.......I guess I need a vat of Purell for this trip (and maybe a plastic bubble, or one of those suits....you know, like they wore in the movie "Outbreak") Ok, getting a grip...... now!
