topic Re: This is scary to me. in Community Chat

This is scary to me.

Northray — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:36:22 GMT

Teen ate leftover Chinese and had to have his legs and fingers amputated. I always eat leftover rice and noodles probably left out a bit too long. As if life isn't scary enough.

Removed link because of political sidebars.

Re: This is scary to me.

gizmogal — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:43:12 GMT

Makes sense to refrigerate leftovers and eat them promptly after removal from the fridge, whether you reheat or not. It's the room temperature storage that is conducive to bacteria growth. Not every rice or noodle leftover is fraught with the peril of death.

His roommate ate the same thing and merely vomited. So if you like that part of the story better, continue as always.

To avoid being scared in future, just change a little by properly addressing food safety issues with leftovers of any type. This was a good reminder to be attentive.

Re: This is scary to me.

Desertdi — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:45:28 GMT

WHERE did this unfortunate incident occur?

Re: This is scary to me.

Northray — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:47:20 GMT

@Desertdi wrote:
WHERE did this unfortunate incident occur?

Says Massachusetts.

Re: This is scary to me.

meallen616 — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:57:58 GMT

@Desertdi and everyone,

I was wonderimg the same as you, so, I googled it ,

Hours after eating leftovers from a restaurant, a 19-year-old was admitted to the hospital with multiple organ failure and later had both his legs and all his fingers amputated. The Massachusetts college student had eaten rice, chicken and lo mein from a restaurant.

Re: This is scary to me.

CANDLEQUEEN — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:52:43 GMT

I worked with a lady who once left out Tuna Salad overnight in an apartment with no air conditioning in the hot summer......She and her husband ate it the next morning after smelling and looking at it, and both ended up sick!!

I said how could you even think that something like that would not need refrigerating? I never leave anything out!!!!!!

Re: This is scary to me.

gizmogal — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:53:40 GMT

@Desertdi wrote:
WHERE did this unfortunate incident occur?

The article said he was a Massachusetts college student. It was in the first line of the second paragraph of the article. I have to guess he didn't go out side of Massachusettss for treatment.

The incident was also reported IN NEJM from the files of Massachusetts General Hospital located in Boston, MA. There was a link to that report in the article. The case file describes exactly what occurrred from a detailed medical point of view.

Here is another link :

https://www.nejm.org/doi/story/10.1056/feature.2021.02.19.100086

Re: This is scary to me.

Carmie — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:25:11 GMT

It appears the food was loaded with bacteria when purchased from the restaurant. The person who ordered it and ate it immediately got sick and vomited.

Instead of throwing out the leftovers, they were left in the fridge. The roommate ate the leftovers after even more bacteria grew in the food overnight.

This is horrible and very sad.. If you do your own cooking at home, you know how long it has been " left out" or now many days ago it was cooked.

If you order from a restaurant, you have no idea how the food was handled.

Normally, if you eat unsafe food, your body will let you know immediately. I had a bout with severe food poisoning while in Vietnam from a buffet in an upscale restaurant. I was the only one out of 14 people who were with me that got sick. It was a life changing experience.

I do not like to eat restaurant food.

Re: This is scary to me.

Northray — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:00:39 GMT

@gizmogal wrote:
@Desertdi wrote:
WHERE did this unfortunate incident occur?
The article said he was a Massachusetts college student. It was in the first line of the second paragraph of the article. I have to guess he didn't go out side of Massachusettss for treatment.

The incident was also reported IN NEJM from the files of Massachusetts General Hospital located in Boston, MA. There was a link to that report in the article. The case file describes exactly what occurrred from a detailed medical point of view.

Here is another link :
https://www.nejm.org/doi/story/10.1056/feature.2021.02.19.100086

Thanks for that link. So now I have to worry about rice and I guess any kind of resturant food, coz it's not like they always serve you fresh food? Poor kid.

Re: This is scary to me.

MorningLover — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:57:53 GMT

I copied the article (long)..

NYPost: A 19-year-old college student developed sepsis and lost his legs and fingers after eating leftover Chinese takeout food in what a doctor described as a “perfect storm” of events.

Dr. Bernard Hsu, a licensed toxicologist, described how the young man became severely ill after eating tainted leftovers, including lo mein, chicken and rice.

“This was a freak accident happening in a perfect storm sequence of events,” Hsu, who did not treat the man, said in a YouTube video on Feb 16.

The teen’s case was first reported in March 2021 in the New England Journal of Medicine, which detailed how he was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital as he was suffering from “shock, multiple organ failure, skin mottling, and a rapidly progressive reticular rash.”

“The patient had been well until 20 hours before this admission, when diffuse abdominal pain and nausea developed after he ate rice, chicken, and lo mein leftovers from a restaurant meal,” the outlet said.

“Multiple episodes of emesis [vomiting] occurred, with vomitus that was either bilious or red-brown. The abdominal pain and vomiting were followed by the development of chills, generalized weakness, progressively worsening diffuse myalgias [muscle pains], chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, neck stiffness, and blurry vision,” it added.

The part-time restaurant worker’s temperature was over 105 degrees Fahrenheit, his heart rate was 166 beats per minute and his respiratory rate was 28 breaths per minute, the medical journal said.

“A diffuse reticular [netlike] purpuric rash was present on the face, chest, abdomen, back, arms, and legs, sparing the palms and soles,” it added.

He underwent blood and urine tests and was diagnosed with a bacterial infection called Neisseria meningitidis, which caused his blood to clot and his liver to fail.

His skin necrosis was said to be caused by “purpura fulminans,” a severe complication of meningococcal septicemia.

Doctors discovered that he had only received one of three doses of a meningococcal conjugate vaccine without a booster, and had only received one dose of a serogroup B meningococcal vaccine out of two or three recommended by the CDC.

After getting parts of all fingers and his legs below his knees amputated, the man went on to have a “relatively good recovery.”

A friend had eaten the same meal as the victim and vomited — but did not become progressively sick, according to the report.

The shocking case has received renewed attention thanks to a Hsu’s video posted on his YouTube channel called “Chubbyemu,” which has 2.46 million subscribers. The video, which identifies the student as “JC,” has been viewed over 1 million times as of Tuesday afternoon.

Re: This is scary to me.

SeaMaiden — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:08:20 GMT

leftover rice grows bacteria very fast... best to put it in the fridge right away and not let it sit out or cool before refrigerating... Also, put in shallow dishes- two if you have a large portion so it cools off in fridge quickly.

Re: This is scary to me.

golding76 — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:32:43 GMT

My own cautionary tale (that I may have provided several years ago but is certainly worth restating to prevent another individual from suffering any sort of health discomfort or, even worse, tragedy):

At one time, I worked at a federal facility near Dulles International Airport. In our building was the sort of cafeteria/eatery that was common at that time and still is, an Asian food-based luncheonette that always had an array of hot foods sitting out on a hot table from 11:00 a.m. to about 2:00 p.m.

At about 1:00 p.m., I dropped in and chose some fried rice among the other goodies I desired from the hot table. This was a Monday. I am deliberately including this detail.

That night, I experienced not only the vomiting and diarrhea that signals food poisoning or bad food having been ingested but I also had the worst stomach cramping and a general feeling of MY BODY SHUTTING DOWN. I had never experienced anything like it and, thank heavens, haven't since.

I felt so weak, so unwell, that I woke my husband to tell him that I thought I was dying. Yes, I used those words. Up to that point, I was trying to make my way through this on my own in the living room and bathroom.

Things did subside to what seemed a non-life-threatening state after a bit more time passed.

The first thing in the morning, I went to my primary care doctors. The doctor who took care of me said that there is such a thing as "Fried Rice Syndrome" (or something similar; I don't remember it exactly now). He advised never to eat fried rice found on a hot table on a Monday because you do not know if it is left over from the Friday before. Also, he said that leftover fried rice was the culprit at a daycare facility whose children all came down with gastro-intestinal problems. He said he will always remember that day in his life when he had to treat a stream of pre-kindergartners.

Of course, you never know how old the fried rice is when you buy it in any mode. The doctor said it is a bacteria factory when it spoils.

Re: This is scary to me.

godi — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 17:27:38 GMT

That's absolute horrible!

Re: This is scary to me.

Effie54 — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 20:32:44 GMT

Hmmmm......I'm not sure I'm buying it. There has to be more to it than that.

Re: This is scary to me.

phoenixbrd — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 13:09:05 GMT

Such a sad event...

After reading the details, it appears the food was already tainted before it left the restaurant. If so, leaving the food out is irrelevant in this case. I wonder if there was follow-up on those eating at the restaurant.

The medical report states "recovery"....I understand the use of this word in a literal sense but there is no such thing for this young man losing all his fingers and legs. His life has changed drastically and there is no going back. Even if he sued the restaurant...no amount of money will compensate for the loss of quality of life.

Moral: Yes this is scary, you don't know what you are ingesting when you eat restaurant food.

Re: This is scary to me.

Mindy D — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 20:42:56 GMT

@Northray @phoenixbrd @Effie54 @godi @golding76 Look for my post Fried Rice Syndrome, here on the Forum.

For the case cited here in the Forum, there's a case of meningococcal fulmians and we are not told of the offending organism. It could be due to other organisms present in the foods he had just eaten or in some other source, not necessarily the rice. The patient di$ not have symptom# characteristics of most B cereus infections. Unfortunately, we cannot access the full article to see what organism was found.

https://community.qvc.com/t5/Wellness/Fried-Rice-Syndrome/m-p/5653479#M169249

Re: This is scary to me.

magicmoodz — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 21:52:42 GMT

I once worked for a company that had a commercial kitchen, a chef (contracted) and three executive and beautifully decorated dining rooms. There were 14 employees so you could say overkill! It's not like we weren't located downtown with a plethora of restaurants nearby.

Because of the commercial kitchen status the Board of Health would periodically stop by the ensure there were no violations. I remember we were once written up for the chef having made rice and left it sitting on the stove to be served for a luncheon. That is when I first learned that rice grows bacteria faster than just about any other food.

Re: This is scary to me.

Greeneyedlady21 — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 20:17:09 GMT

Beth Dalbey,Patch Staff

Posted Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 11:59 am

BOSTON, MA — One of the doctors involved in a case discussion about a 19-year-old New England teen who underwent multiple amputations because of meningoccal disease is pushing back against widely published reports the patient became ill after eating bad leftovers.The

story was published by multiple outlets, including Forbes, USA Today, Patch and others, after a fictional dramatization on YouTube brought new attention to a case challenge published in the New England Journal Of Medicine last spring.

The YouTuber responsible, whose username is Chubbyemu, tied the teen’s illness to a leftover chicken, rice and lo mein meal — incorrectly so, according to the editor of the article, Dr. Eric Rosenberg, the director of the clinical microbiology laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, where the teen was treated.

He told The Boston Globe that what the patient ate was “completely irrelevant” and that it “was horrifying that this is how medical disinformation can be so easily disseminated.”

“There’s absolutely no history in the medical literature of this kind of bacteria being transmitted by food,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told The Globe. “It’s baloney.”

Re: This is scary to me.

Mindy D — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 20:44:52 GMT

@magicmoodz @It's not just rice, and it's a specific bacteria, B cereus. When you make or order rice, take it and put it in shallow containers and refrigerate quickly. It won't matter if you wait five to ten minutes until you can handle the rice to transfer it to the fridge. In other countries, B cereus contamination has occurred in other foods. In he case here on the Forum, we are not able to see what organism led to the meningococcal

fulminans. We are not sure of the source because we can not read the entire report.

Re: This is scary to me.

Mindy D — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 23:28:20 GMT

@Northray @Greeneyedlady21 @magicmoodz @phoenixbrd @Effie54 @I got to the bottom of this. The organism that caused the illness IS NOT FOOD BORN. The 19-year-old did not get meningococcal disease from his food.

I tried to open the full report but there was a charge so I went online to get more information. Below is quoted from

"No, bad leftovers didn’t cause teen’s life-threatening infection, amputations"

Media misreads medical case study, blames non-foodborne infection on leftovers by Beth Mole- 2/28/2022, 5:59 PM in Ars Technica online.

"In reality, the 19-year-old male suffered a rare and extremely severe complication from a blood infection with a bacterium that causes meningococcal disease. The bacterium—known as Neisseria meningitidis—is not foodborne, and its incubation period is longer than just a few hours.

N. meningitidis harmlessly colonize the noses and throats of about 10 percent of people. It spreads through very close contact and directly swapping saliva, such as through coughing, kissing, and living in close quarters, like dormitories. Given the risk in group settings, many colleges and universities require students to get meningococcal vaccines before attending. Still, there has never been a documented case of N. meningitis spreading via food."