Other Food Scares

Food products from oysters to apple juice have been implicated in illnesses in California. The latest outbreak came this week with strawberries suspected of carrying the hepatitis A virus.

* January 1997: Gulf of Mexico oysters are recalled after 150 people in 11 states, including California, become ill, possibly because of the so-called Norwalk-type virus.

* August 1996: Raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico, contaminated with a deadly strain of bacteria, claim the lives of four people. Since May 1993, 16 cases of infection from the bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus, have been recorded in Los Angeles County. Eight of the infections proved fatal.

* June 1996: Fifty-two vacationers get sick from an unidentified virus aboard a Carnival Cruise Lines ship after a trip to Mexico that started in Los Angeles.

* October 1996: Several intestinal illnesses are linked to unpasteurized apple juice from Odwalla Inc., a company based in California. The death of a Colorado toddler is attributed to the outbreak, caused by a virulent strain of bacteria known as E. coli 0157:H7. Odwalla is now pasteurizing its juice.

* September 1994: More than 600 passengers and crew members fall ill with shigellosis, a virulent intestinal disease, while aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Viking Serenade after it returns to Los Angeles from Mexico.

* June 1985: An epidemic linked to the listeria bacteria in cheese produced by Jalisco Mexican Products Inc. of Artesia is blamed for 84 deaths, half of them in the Los Angeles area.

--Compiled by Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen