New Official Defends Outbreak Probe
Illinois’ new chief health official, Jeremy Margolis, said Friday that the 2-week-old salmonella investigation has been conducted properly despite the sudden firing of his predecessor and the mounting number of milk-borne cases in the Midwest.
Margolis succeeded Thomas Kirkpatrick, who was fired as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health on Thursday night by Gov. James R. Thompson after it was learned that Kirkpatrick was vacationing in Mexico and monitoring the crisis by phone.
The salmonella outbreak, the second-largest in recorded U.S. history, has been linked to milk produced and sold by Jewel Companies Inc. Thousands of persons in five Midwest states have fallen ill. Health officials say that 4,742 cases have been reported, and 3,608 cases have been confirmed as salmonella poisoning.
Three deaths have been linked to the current outbreak, and authorities said Friday that an autopsy indicated that a fourth person, a 2-year-old girl, had salmonella.
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said the largest salmonella outbreak occurred in 1965 in Riverside, Calif., where about 16,000 persons became ill.
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