Food poisoning outbreak attributed to bacillus cereus.

About 300 of 450 people who attended a New Year's Eve dinner in Trail , British Columbia , suffered from diarrhoea and abdominal cramps. Heavy growth of an aerobic , gram-positive, spore-forming bacillus resembling Bacillus cereus was recovered from remnants of green bean salad. Incubation period , symptomatology , and duration of illness in this outbreak closely resembled those observed in food-poisoning incidents attributed to B. cereus in Europe and the United States , but differed from those reported in Quebec and the United Kingdom and attributed to fried rice. Some common limitations of this investigation are discussed.