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Poll: HIPPA - Is it really stopping us? (6 member(s) have cast votes)

So after reading and/or looking at the HIPPA website are we really stopped from asking?

  1. No - I guess we are not (4 votes [66.67%])

    Percentage of vote: 66.67%

  2. Yes - You are leading your corporate offices to their destruction (2 votes [33.33%])

    Percentage of vote: 33.33%

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Mr. Incognito

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Posted 05 March 2015 - 04:32 PM

I would absolutely rather break the law than ask someone if they had AIDs before allowing them to work with food.   If there's blood in the food, we don't sell it.

 

  If they have a transmissible food borne illness, they are mandated to report it.  They agree to report illness.  We don't ask or guess if they are sick.  We are mandated to give workers paid days off (at least in California) if they are working in the food industry for illness.   If they're worried about not getting paid, they tell us, and we have them work on things that aren't food.   There's plenty of break room trash can wall stains to scrub and fun safety training and SOPs to read. 

 

This law isn't here for you to go digging through your employee's health history.   It's here so when the next Typhoid Mary serves up some special soup you can test her for the strain and identify the source.

 

If you know there is blood in the product you don't sell it.  If there is blood or other infected components in food that you don't know about you will put thousands to millions of people at risk and at some point if there is a massive outbreak linked to your facility you will go to jail.

 

You can't expect employees to do the right thing seeing as many times they don't even when they have been trained.  That is why you are expected to be an active part of protecting your customers.  That is why the laws and regulations are written the way they are.  Persons infected with anything listed by the FDA are not afforded ANY protection in this matter.  

 

That's the simple truth of the matter.


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Mr. Incognito


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Mr. Incognito

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Posted 05 March 2015 - 04:34 PM

At any rate I'm good with discussing the topic I'll read any further comments and that's probably about it.


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fgjuadi

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Posted 05 March 2015 - 05:16 PM

At any rate I'm good with discussing the topic I'll read any further comments and that's probably about it.

Yeah, I can see how it can be a touchy subject.  It's actually HIPAA , and it gets touchy because the reason health records are private is that you're not allowed to discriminate against people who are sick.  But no one wants someone sick making their food.   That's why when an employee is sick, we give them a paid day off, or we give them other work to do.

 

HIV isn't a food borne illness, and I think it's abhorrent to bar a worker from food production if they are positive.  I'll gladly eat something prepared by someone with HIV, as long as they didn't chew it up first. http://www.cdc.gov/h...on.html        Edit:  Looks like the CDC says you're not at risk even if you eat food with HIV positive semen in it.  I'll pass on testing that one out.

 

If you review the law, you can see all of the provisions relate to public health authorities tracking and reporting outbreaks.  Basically, if 10 people eat at your restaurant and get Hep A, then the doctors are going to request samples from them, and tell you if an employee is positive, even if that patient doesn't want to tell the world they're carrying Norovirous.  It's how stuff like this functions - http://www.cdc.gov/f...fsac/index.html

 

The list of illness provided by the FDA http://www.fda.gov/f.../ucm103263.htm are food borne illnesses, which are way more likely to be transmitted because someone asymptomatic did not wash their hands properly than blood in product.    And a visual check or even asking the employee if they have an illness isn't going to prevent that.  


Edited by magenta_majors, 05 March 2015 - 05:18 PM.

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Talha

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Posted 01 October 2015 - 01:44 PM

Unfortunately some people contribute saying things they have NO CLUE about! Which is shameful and shocking, especially when it comes to something as serious as HIV. I am asking those who don't know not to write wrong stuff PLEASE. 

Anyway, Cern Annwn gave you the real deal in his post. I don't really need to tell you more or to repeat. Just please read careflly what he wrote. 

Remember that symptoms or lack of symptoms mean nothing as much as HIV is concerned, since MOST of people who seroconverted had no symptoms at all, and since a lot of phobic eople get false symptoms! Only ELISA antibodies test being taken 13 weeks after a potential exposure is the way to have a conclusive result.  



MWidra

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Posted 05 October 2015 - 06:20 PM

Unfortunately some people contribute saying things they have NO CLUE about! Which is shameful and shocking, especially when it comes to something as serious as HIV. I am asking those who don't know not to write wrong stuff PLEASE. 

Anyway, Cern Annwn gave you the real deal in his post. I don't really need to tell you more or to repeat. Just please read careflly what he wrote. 

Remember that symptoms or lack of symptoms mean nothing as much as HIV is concerned, since MOST of people who seroconverted had no symptoms at all, and since a lot of phobic eople get false symptoms! Only ELISA antibodies test being taken 13 weeks after a potential exposure is the way to have a conclusive result.  

I'm not sure what information you are referring to in your statement.  From a food safety point of view, HIV is not as much of an item of concern as the diseases that are usually considered food borne pathogens.  HIV does not even fit into that category it is not highly contagious.  The virus does not live long outside the body, and it is confined to body fluids.  It cannot be passed through the air, but requires direct contact into the mucous membranes, mouth, or body cavities.  I'm well schooled in the prevention of BBP diseases, I've been a safety officer both in medical research and here in food manufacturing for over 10 years.   BBP protection has been part of all my safety programs. 

 

The original discussion is about HIPPA rules and how important it is to be able to ask your food handling employees if they have a reportable disease by FDA standards.  HIV is not on that list of reportable diseases, but the stigma of someone who is HIV positive was one of the reasons that the HIPPA rules were considered.

 

Martha


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Simon

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Posted 05 October 2015 - 06:26 PM

Thanks for clarifying Martha, but I wouldn't expect Talha to understand the original topic.  The person is trying to hijack this thread with links to a spurious medical website. I've deleted the links.

 

Regards,

Simon


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