Last week, CBS Chicago reported that Legionella bacteria had been found at the Comptroller’s Springfield office. The results were confirmed last Tuesday by officials from Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office and also noted that the contaminated water was not in locations of the office which were accessible to employees. This revelations comes to light at a clearly rough time for many of Illinois’ state facilities, which most recently included the news that health officials had confirmed a fourth case of Legionnaires’ disease at the Quincy, Illinois Veterans Home. It is important to keep this story in perspective. After all, Legionella bacteria was found however it appears to be isolated in an area away from individuals and furthermore, as it appears now, does not seem to have resulted in any cases of Legionnaires’ disease. That said, it is perhaps this revelation on top of the confirmed cases at the Veterans Home, the case of Legionnaires’ disease at Chester Mental Health Center, and with Legionella bacteria being found at the state capitol building which makes this incident feel alarming. Indeed it feels as though Illinois state facilities have come up numerous times over the past few weeks with this incident only serving as the most recent rendition of this trend. The sentiment of this post, then, is largely the same as from previous renditions of this pattern; mainly, that this post sincerely hopes that these incidents and revelations serve as a catalyst for developing better water distribution systems or testing schedules in order to ensure that scares like this do not happen. Jules Zacher is an attorney in Philadelphia who has tried Legionnaires’ disease cases across the U.S. Please visit LegionnaireLawyer.com again for updates.
Legionella Bacteria Found at Illinois Comptroller’s Office was last modified: February 26th, 2018 by