Hundreds of Thanksgiving diners at a restaurant in western New York apparently got a little something special with their holiday meal that made them all sick when they should have been enjoying the extended weekend.

According to the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (warning: auto-play video at that link), the county health department shut down the restaurant when there were only 60 confirmed cases of the mystery illness. People who had eaten there on Thanksgiving Day began calling the health department the following day, reporting that they had “severe diarrhea.”

The exact pathogen that made them sick still hasn’t been diagnosed. Local authorities have interviewed about 80 diners, and stool samples from patients as well as food samples from the restaurant have been sent to the state health department’s labs for testing.

The people who became ill most likely had a food item that they ate in common, rather than a highly contagious bug like norovirus spreading around the restaurant among customers over the holiday.

This was not the worst food safety catastrophe this Thanksgiving: while the Golden Ponds incident made more people sick, a church-sponsored dinner in California that served 800 people caused 19 illnesses, and three guests who joined the dinner from a nearby assisted living facility died. Most of the food at that event was prepared at church members’ homes.

(via Food Safety News)

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