CMU School of Drama


Thursday, April 28, 2016

15 CMU illnesses linked to campus cafe

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Fifteen Carnegie Mellon University students got sick with "gastrointestinal distress" after eating either soup or sandwiches at a campus eatery on Monday or Tuesday.

6 comments:

Megan Jones said...

You would think that for the insane amount of money we pay for our meal plans every semester that Carnegie Mellon would do more to make sure that the food we are eating is actually safe to eat. This isn't the first time that someone that I know has gotten sick from eating campus food, and the food truck had to be closed earlier this year because they didn't have any running water. For the price we pay this really isn't acceptable. It makes me so sad that La Prima was the source of this, as it's one of my favorite places to go on campus. There was an error in this article when they said the La Prima was straying open, as I walked past it on my way to global histories and it was closed. It's definitely a good thing that they're taking the time to clean and make sure that their food is safe, but it does all seem like too little too late. All I can say is that I'm happy that I'll be cooking my own food and getting off the meal plan next year.

Natalia Kian said...

I just...
Where do I begin?
La Prima, I'll admit it. You really had me going there. I was all for your wannabe cafe demeanor. The fact that your food and drinks tasted almost as if I hadn't purchased them on a college campus was a definite pull for me. You seemed like the perfect pre-global slump fix. You even used my favorite brand of Chai concentrate. It was like we were made for each other. And that tiny quiche - honestly, God bless. But seriously? I had survived all year without more than a singular two-day cold. You knew! You saw me often enough! I took my vitamins. I drank my water. I got as much sleep as I could possibly finagle out of my freshman year. And then BAM. This BS comes out of nowhere - I'm sorry, not nowhere, actually a delicious sandwich - and I'm in the hospital? During finals week? For 8 hours? Hours that I could have spent studying, formatting, typing - or literally doing anything other than vomiting and thinking I was dying. What a WASTE! Things will never be the same.
I guess I just really need some time to think about this. But good thing I won't see you again till next semester, since it's the end of the year.
Oh yeah, that's right, it's the end of the year. IT'S GODDAMN FINALS WEEK, LA PRIMA. How could you?
I don't need time to think. I just need time to pass my classes.
Your pissed-off former customer,
Ham and Brie Victim Nat

Claire Farrokh said...

God this still crushes my soul every time I hear about it. Of every dining location on campus, I would never have expected La Prima to betray me like this. In fact, I am pretty sure that La Prima would be my last guess. I would guess the Underground, Gallo de Oro, or even the grill place with the chicken in the UC. But never La Prima. La Prima is the place to go before a horrible class in Wean. It's the place to stop by when you have to frantically print something from the color printer. I am crushed. How will I find the will to live. There's no motivation to go to classes in Wean if La Prima can not be trusted. What will we, as a Carnegie Mellon University community do if La Prima gets shut down? It hurts just to think about it. La Prima was closed this past Friday and I could not stop by before my Global recitation to get my iced chai and chocolate croissant on a block. Do you know how much that hurt? I could barely get through my class. We need La Prima. Why is La Prima doing this to us.

Annie Scheuermann said...

We all know about this by now. Two of the freshmen DPs were victim of this, putting them in the ER. I want to know why it happened though. If the soups and sandwiches were old and they never should have been serving them in the first place, or if it was something from the food they were shipped. From what I have heard it was not just normal food poisoning it was a very bad illness. And the fact that La Prima or CMU is not really stepping up and saying what went wrong isn't right. They need to express what happened, so that they can gain their costumers trust back. I know on Friday it was closed, but that is about all their doing to show some kind of fix so it never happens again. Also, two more students had the same illness but did not have anything from La Prima, so is this something that was actually in other campus food? Well, I can only say I am glad that I am heading home soon so I can cook my own food.

Alex Kaplan said...

La Prima has betrayed us. Once always there for us, always a trustworthy source of delicious Chai lattes and a hurried sandwich or chocolate croissant, now a place of mistrust and disappointment. I feel very bad for all of those who were sickened by the food at La Prima. I am very surprised that this happened, as La Prima has always seemed a good, safe, choice for a campus eatery, but now I don’t know if I can eat there again without stopping to think about this unfortunate circumstance. To echo what Megan said, I don’t understand why the sanitary conditions on campus are so poor when we pay so much in tuition and in meal plans to come here. When I am paying $10 a block, I expect that food to be safe for me to eat. I am very happy that I will not be on a meal plan next year and get to make my own food in the sanitary place that will be my kitchen.

Chris Calder said...

I mean there isn’t very much to say on this topic. Some people got food poisoning from eating campus food; it was going to happen at some point. The interesting part to me is the fact that only 15 people got sick from this. I happen to know 4 of the people that had eating the food from La Prima and from what I gathered there was a lot more that 15 people sick with food poisoning. I think the most important thing to understand is that you have to know what you are eating and be carful when eating curtain foods. Not so long ago my roommate got sick with food poisoning from eating the campus food. He decided it was a good idea to eat the seafood offered at CMU cafe, which is just an example of something you should never eat. Seafood can grow a lot of bacterial and other harmful things that can lead to sever sickness and I would count on a college campus to do it right.