Outbreak of histamine poisoning associated with consumption of Swiss cheese

Abstract

On 24 March 1980, an outbreak of suspected food-borne illness involving six individuals occurred on the USS Benjamin Franklin. Nausea and vomiting occurred within 30 min to 1 h following consumption of a common meal comprised of a salad made from lettuce, sliced ham and sliced Swiss cheese. Symptoms persisted for approximately one hour. No evidence of pathogenic bacteria or staphylococcal enterotoxins was found on analysis of the salad components. However, histamine analysis of the Swiss cheese revealed an average histamine level for three subsamples of 187 mg/100 g, a level sufficient to implicate histamine as the causative agent of this outbreak.