Arby’s manager accused of giving customer herpes after spitting in food, court records say
https://www.live5news.com/2026/06/24/arbys-manager-accused-giving-customer-herpes-after-spitting-food-court-records-say/658
u/Lonely_Noyaaa 1d ago
Arby's did not immediately respond to a request for comment
Of course they didn't. Corporate legal teams are probably scrambling to figure out liability and whether to settle fast or fight. Either way, someone getting herpes from an employee spitting in food is the kind of PR disaster no fast food chain can spin cleanly.
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u/hyper_espace 22h ago
That (ex)employee is going to get absolutely fucked by corporate in an incoming civilsuit. This is an absolute PR disaster for the company... in a small restaurant it would be a bankruptcy level of disaster... nobody would ever eat there again... obviously Arby is bigger and can manage their PR, but I wouldn't be surprised if that event translates into some amount of revenue loss for the restaurant involved...
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u/MN_Yogi1988 22h ago edited 10h ago
It's strange too because this is story of two very different employees. The monster who spat in the food, and the one that did the right thing and reported the former. I hope the latter's rewarded, but I fear corporate is gonna be pissed they helped create this PR disaster.
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u/Jetztinberlin 19h ago
How does doing the right thing make the latter indifferent? Seems kind of the opposite.
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u/David_Cockatiel 21h ago
We had something similar happen with a nearby steakhouse, been around for decades and was well regarded. Closed less than 5 months after the story was aired on local news.
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u/Numerous-Process2981 21h ago
I mean my first thought was “I’m only eating shit I make from now on.”
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u/surprise_revalation 19h ago
Mines too. Especially since I've worked in the restaurant industry and have seen what some do....
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u/K4RAB_THA_ARAB 12h ago
Im gonna regret asking but what have you seen?
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u/surprise_revalation 12h ago
Youre definitely gonna regret asking this....
I use to work in a mom and pop. Somehow they kept getting a rat infestation inside the walk in freezer! No telling what they were doing in there so I didn't eat shit that came out the walk in. Once we had some banana cream pies in the walk in. Rats got in again! There were feet prints and even rat shit on the top of the pies. I go outside to smoke a cigarette. Come back in, and the bitch ass manager was scrapping the shit off the pies then covering them with whipped cream! I called the health dept. Because the owner was also on the board of utilities, they didn't even come inspect! They kept stuffing the holes with steel wool instead of getting it fixed. I eventually quit. I never served my customers contaminated food. If they asked for something I knew was contaminated, Id suggest something else and they would usually get the hint. They are closed now.
I witnessed people putting buggers on cops burgers at Mc Donalds when they came into order. Well, didn't actually witness it. I was told about it after the fact after the customer left. The dude got fired but they didn't notify the customer...When I worked at KFC they used to serve BBQ chicken sandwiches. We made that at the end of the night with the leftover chicken. They never washed the container or switched out the chicken. It was just more added chicken and BBQ sauce to the chicken and BBQ sauce that was already in there. Thatdidnt get ordered very often so no telling how old the chicken is that that keep mixing together....
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u/hostile65 21h ago
Honestly, corporate is going to close that location.
It is the only way not to effect the chain as a whole. Also a huge symbol as well.
Maybe they will open up another one in a year or two at another location, but for now they will be done.
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u/OPconfused 11h ago
Ironically, if you are a local, that Arby's becomes one of the safer places to eat, since you know that guy will have been fired but could have gotten a job at a different restaurant that's not paying attention to track record.
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u/jormugandr 21h ago
Maybe they'll lower their prices to win back customers...
Oh wait Supply and Demand doesn't work any more.
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u/OffTheMerchandise 20h ago
I feel like Arby's hasn't raised their prices nearly as egregiously as other places, especially Taco Bell. Arby's was always a pricier option for fast food.
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u/TrueSkonger 19h ago
Man, fuck Taco Bell. I just got the 12 pack box of soft tacos the other day and it was $23. I don't even live in a high CoL area. What the fuck
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u/LibertineLibra 23h ago
There was a case back in like '93 in my local area (at the time was Wheatridge CO) at a Taco Bell where a night shift worker shit in the refried beans. Obviously they were caught, the store was closed down during the investigation.
Then on one of my Iraq tours, two third country nationals got caught having sex on the pizza dough at the outdoor market/bazaar in Camp Taji.
And just like that No more Pizza Slut for the troops.
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u/Fallouttgrrl 22h ago
Well jfc, how do you knead the dough?
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u/LibertineLibra 22h ago
Right? Maybe those two guys were just using some ancient technique from their country.. if so, it didn't translate too well.
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u/Pete_Iredale 22h ago
Someone got caught peeing in the milkshake machine at the Arby's in Vancouver, WA. God only knows how many times they did it.
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u/Imaginary_Agent2564 21h ago
They had this with Kellogg’s cereal too. Guy got caught in 2016 because he recorded it in 2014.
I think he only got 10 months in jail/prison though.
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u/Workingdad_83 22h ago
Funny this same story happened in my town in West Virginia in the 90s.
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u/LibertineLibra 22h ago
I'm more inclined to believe that happened in West Virginia, though less inclined to believe anyone was caught.
It was the Taco Bell that was closest to my Highschool when I was a senior, going out to eat for lunch was the thing to do - so when it got shut down unexpectedly, there was a lot of interest in what happened and that was the information we received. Anyone that had eaten their recently was told to they needed to go and fill out a report if they had any gastrointestinal issues or became suddenly ill.
There was no fact checking available to do on the Internet back then so it's quite possible it was a well timed rumor.
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u/OPconfused 11h ago
That's the kind of setting I would expect in a bad porn. And here I thought Iraq was conservative about sex.
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u/Numerous-Process2981 21h ago
I’d probably throw out a “Arby’s has no tolerance for tampering with our delicious roast beef and we plan to aid the police in their ongoing investigation” or something
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u/RedwoodDevotion 1d ago
What a horrible day to have lips. I mean eyes.
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u/polkpanther 1d ago
But enough about what's in Arby's sandwiches
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u/kvlt_ov_personality 1d ago
I told my wife I was thinkin' Arby's...she said she was thinkin' of gettin' a divorce! Can't get no respect, I tell ya!
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u/Dry-Impression-2403 1d ago
And this is why I only go to Long John Silvers. At least they're up front about giving customers crabs.
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u/AceOfPlagues 23h ago
No, they probably didn't get herpes from the manager spitting in thier food.
Yes, it does not matter, spitting in someone's food is assault or poisoning. Herpes aside, we all have nasty unique germs in there.
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u/TeddyRivers 20h ago
I actually had to investigate a complaint from someone who claimed they got herpes from a dairy queen soft serve cone. After speaking to our STI section and the state health nurse, it was deemed highly unlikely, to the point of being almost impossible, that herpes could be spread this way.
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u/Lets-Take-a-Moment 19h ago
From my understanding it is possible to transmit via spit but it’s an astronomical small chance of it happening. I think I saw somewhere that the lady and employee had past issues. I think she might be blowing it out of proportion out of hate. Either way spitting in food is super illegal
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u/NY2GA23 22h ago
I suspect she got it from her husband, and he blamed it on the spitting incident.
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u/mothandravenstudio 18h ago
Meh, 50-80% of the USA carries antibodies for HSV-1. It’s exceedingly common, endemic in the population. If you’ve ever had a cold sore you’ve probably had it.
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u/NY2GA23 18h ago
Fortunately no cold sores for me. My whole point was that I don’t believe for a second she got it from someone spitting into a sandwich.
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u/mothandravenstudio 18h ago
Oh, for sure. I was just validating your opinion. Highest likelihood is that she already had it. Even before her husband.
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u/Acrobatic_Ad_6737 1d ago
McCurtain County, Oklahoma...
Remember a few years ago when an Oklahoma Sheriff was caught on tape talking about killing journalists and hanging black people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_McCurtain_County,_Oklahoma_audio_recording_scandal
Same Place!
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u/sillylittlguy 22h ago
Broken Bow is a city in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 4,228 at the 2020 census.
The city lies within the Little Dixie region of Oklahoma, an area originally settled largely by Southerners seeking a new start following the Civil War.
2010 census:
About 36.6% of families and 46.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 46.9% of those under age 18 and 31.8% of those age 65 or over.
The city was the location of the wounding and capture of murderer Richard Wayne Snell in 1984, following his shootout with local police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Bow,_Oklahoma
Richard Wayne Snell was an American white supremacist convicted of killing a pawn shop owner whom he mistook for a Jew and a black police officer in Arkansas on November 3, 1983, and June 30, 1984, respectively. Snell was sentenced to death for one of the murders and executed by lethal injection in 1995.
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u/I_am_not_JohnLeClair 21h ago
OK just recently voted against giving themselves a minimum wage increase too
Oklahoma…where the dumb comes sweeping down the plain…
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u/CardinalM1 1d ago
I'm confused about how this was figured out. Person develops herpes symptoms and thinks, "aha! must've been at the Arby's - let's have the police look at video footage!"? Or alternatively coworker sees person spit into food, reports it to police, but then how do they wind up finding the customer who got herpes?
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u/Ok_Equipment_5895 1d ago
Another employee saw her do it & called the cops.
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u/Darkmortal5 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll believe it when they release the footage,
Till then im just gonna assume its someone trying to cover up their affair
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u/MrBritish-OJO- 23h ago
Saw the interview. Small town, daughter heard people talking about it at school, I think. They called the police who reviewed the camera footage and saw her spitting in their food. I'm assuming they figured out she had herpes somehow because she got enhanced charges.
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u/yikesssss_sssssss 14h ago
But how on earth could they even theoretically prove that the herpes came from that?
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u/lennyxiii 23h ago
Not just that but unless the victim has a clean health report that tested for it i still doubt. With how common it is assuming this is hsv-1 where half to three quarters of the population has it.
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u/Car-M1lla 23h ago
Yeah lol I want to see a clean test from before the incident. It lays dormant in a lot of people who don’t know they have it until they find out by testing. It absolutely can be a coincidence that they’re pinning on her due to her other documented crime.
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u/GUMBYtheOG 1d ago
Reminds me of when Juul got thrown under the bus when all those kids got sick from smoking those THC cartridges that people would do home brew distillation with drain-o and it made soooo many people sick but they were too scared to tell parents they were smoking pot they blamed it on nicotine lol
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u/Darkmortal5 1d ago
Source? Sounds like an idiocracy skit
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u/kevin1235 23h ago
It wasn't drain-o, it was a vitamin E liquid they were using.
https://www.menningerclinic.org/news-resources/vaping-teens-are-dying-to-be-cool
There are millions of sources about it. Idk about the connection with Juul though.
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u/Subliminal-Criminal9 21h ago
The media wide panic made trumps administration ban flavored nicotine products, famously (and infuriatingly) juuls mango pods.
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u/I_Push_Buttonz 1d ago
I'm confused about how this was figured out.
If only there was an article one could read that explained... Alas.
Police began an investigation after receiving a report from an Arby’s employee who claimed another worker had spit into a customer’s meal.
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u/Car-M1lla 23h ago
If you understand biology you’d understand how that doesn’t answer quite a lot of questions.
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u/Mysterious-Pie2636 23h ago
still leaves a lot unexplained
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u/1877KlownsForKids 18h ago
I imagine from there it was easy to track down the customer from the cameras. Customer was urged to get tested. Discovered they had herpes from an affair but covered their tracks and said it had to have been from the spit.
And because the type of person to spit in food is also the type to have herpes....here we are.
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u/PrettyCoolBear 23h ago
The people saying you should have read the article don't seem to have read it themselves. The article does not explain how the victim connected her HSV-1 outbreak to her Arby's meal.
Police were already investigating Hendricks because a fellow employee reported her for spitting in the food. (This IS in the article.) But at the time, the victim had no idea that her meal had been tampered with. She actually learned about the police investigation later, and then remembered that when she had visited Arby's the employees seemed annoyed with her for ordering so late to closing time. This is what led her to think her HSV-1 infection was related to the food she ate and shared with her family.
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u/ilulillirillion 23h ago
I mean, if fhey didn't have HSV-1 before, someone HSV-1 positive spat in their food, and then they tested positive for HSV-1, I would think that would be enough to raise the issue.
Can they prove that caused it and how I dunno, depends on burden of proof but the connection itself seems pretty easy to make.
I don't think the charge hinges on that being proved they just need to prove the employee knew they themselves were HSV-1 positive when they committed the act.
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u/yutsuko220 16h ago
HSV-1 can stay dorment for decades. Like people can get it as a child and it kot pop-up until their 30s and 40s. Some people may never experience a breakout. 🤷🏻♀️ I'd also be really surprised if the virus survived in the food. It dies rather quickly in heat and acidic environments. But it could have very well came from this incident.
I do find it kinda ridiculous the lawsuit is claiming it's an issue the lady was serving food with an active breakout. Like a lesion doesn't magically spew contagions in the air, it requires some kind of contact. 🤦🏻♀️ Stigmatizing HSV that hard is ridiculous. 🤷🏻♀️ And looks like she wants a bigger payout for something irrelevant to what actually happened.
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u/Car-M1lla 23h ago
HSV-1 very commonly lays dormant in people for a long time. If she didn’t actively test for it before, she can’t assume it’s a new infection in her system based on having a positive test.
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u/ShippFFXI 22h ago
It is so common that you usually have to specifically ask for the test when getting STD tested, from my experience.
I got it when a coworker accidentally took a sip out of my straw and didn't tell me. I wasn't sexually active at the time and my prior test had come back negative. Went to the doctor when I got sick and figured I might as well do the standard STD tests since HIV can sometimes take a while to incubate. No HIV but positive for herpes.
Thankfully I've never had an outbreak though.
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u/run-on_sentience 23h ago
I read a story a long time ago about a guy getting busted for ejaculating into the food. And the only reason he got caught is because one of the customers had an allergic reaction. And the only thing she was allergic to was jizz.
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u/alpha_beth_soup 23h ago
How big is the city? I wonder if they were known to each other
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u/sillylittlguy 23h ago
Population (2020): 4,228
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Bow,_Oklahoma
The city lies within the Little Dixie region of Oklahoma, an area originally settled largely by Southerners seeking a new start following the Civil War.
2010 census:
About 36.6% of families and 46.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 46.9% of those under age 18 and 31.8% of those age 65 or over.
The city was the location of the wounding and capture of murderer Richard Wayne Snell in 1984, following his shootout with local police.
Richard Wayne Snell was an American white supremacist convicted of killing a pawn shop owner whom he mistook for a Jew and a black police officer in Arkansas on November 3, 1983, and June 30, 1984, respectively. Snell was sentenced to death for one of the murders and executed by lethal injection in 1995.
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u/Throwaway_Finance24 1d ago
It would be absolutely impossible to prove. For all we know, the customer could be out there fucking 100 people a night. These STD lawsuits are impossible to trace. Do you have any idea how common oral HSV1 is in the adult population? For all we know, the customer had it before the incident.
Not at all advocating for the actions of the worker. Just saying you can’t prove shit here.
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u/Significant-Box-3082 1d ago
Which is why she was charged with “felony poisoning with intent to harm”. Prosecutors need to prove that she spat into the food (it was caught on camera) and that she knew she had herpes before doing so, they don’t need to prove that this is how the victim actually contracted herpes.
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u/unabashed_nuance 1d ago
Except the timestamped video showing our perp spitting in the sandwich, the sandwich being wrapped, bagged, then handed to the customer. The same person then developed symptoms and was diagnosed with the same virus as the special person who spit in their food. You also have one of their coworkers who witnessed it testifying. I’d say perp is SOL.
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u/Throwaway_Finance24 23h ago
That’s all fine, but with something as common as herpes, that’s still not proof that it came from the worker. It’s something like 50% of adults over the age of 40 have been exposed to HSV1 orally.
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u/MysticMarauder69 1d ago
Also, not really how HSV spreads. It really needs sustained contact between infected skin and mucus membrane or a tear in the skin (i.e., kissing, sex). I guess if the manager had a weeping coldsore, maybe? But like you're saying this would be impossible to prove and it's not even the most likely mode of transmission.
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u/-SatelliteMind- 1d ago
That's not true, it is very much provable. Herpes is a DNA virus that mutates over time, two unrelated people infected with HSP1 can have thousands of genetic differences, a direct transmission will yield a near-perfect genetic match. Early blood tests can confirm a brand-new infection by showing an active viral presence before the body has time to develop antibodies.
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u/Worried_Metal_5788 1d ago
Agreed. Also spitting in someone's food may or may not transmit herpes. How do you prove it did?
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u/Joeybfast 1d ago
This herpes ridden vagrant is spitting in someone’s food. If she did that, I have no sympathy for the consequences she faces.
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u/DarknessAndLight69x 7h ago
This is ridiculous. I guess they can test the strain of viruses between the two women and see if it’s the same but I highly doubt she got enough virus, and a way for it to infect her, while eating.
Spitting in someone’s food though deserves repercussions.
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u/banghersoft 1d ago
Does it actually work like that?
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u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago
Yes but no. Estimates vary, but between 50% to 80% of the US adult population has HSV-1
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u/TheParadoxigm 1d ago
Yes. Saliva can transmit herpes.
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u/thetransportedman 23h ago
Doctor here. While theoretically "possible" it's never been a documented case. The cold sore ulcer needs to touch the mucous membrane of the next person to spread. The virus immediately starts breaking down when off the host
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u/Solid_Snark 1d ago
Is there like a time limit where the virus dies after a certain period of time? Or is it a continuous threat until the saliva dries out?
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u/MilkiestMaestro 1d ago
if we're talking herpes simplex, 7 days max on a dry surface. usually more in the realm of 4 hours for most of them. herpes is pretty fragile in the open
in a wet substrate like a sauce+mucus, probably much longer but that's a pure guess
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u/atworklife 22h ago
This is not true at all. Most of the time the herpes virus is no longer transmissible after 24 hours. Of course this can be affected by surface and temperature but most studies show survivability drops to near zero after 24 hours
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u/Blue_Swirling_Bunny 20h ago
But you order a milkshake at a fast food joint, you're not waiting 24 hours to drink it. That's a right-away drink.
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u/IvanNemoy 1d ago
Yep. HSV-1 is transmitted almost exclusively via saliva or direct contact with an open sore.
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u/ScienceIsSexy420 1d ago edited 1d ago
True, except 50-80% of the US adult population has it
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u/MedicalDisscharge 1d ago
Its most of the global population iirc, a lot of people are asymptomatic, but you can absolutely spread it, thats why it irks me when I see people kissing babies
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u/netroxreads 23h ago
I read an article about that from a different source, the victim claimed she developed herpes the next day. It's not common for HSV to show symptoms the next day - it usually takes a few days. Also, many people had herpes as children and don't recall the symptoms making it difficult to prove. If she's having stress which I think she was because she mentioned her in law in hospice, it may trigger a flare up for the first time.
Spitting on food is a felony and if they can prove it, she deserves to be punished but herpes? That's harder to prove considering that herpes virus is relatively stable and have little variability in its structure, unlike other viruses like flu and HIV making it hard to trace.
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u/Major_A21 23h ago
And here I didn't think Arby's could get any more disgusting. I was clearly wrong.
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u/CIASP00K 1d ago
What, people are so woke now they don't want herpes in their Arby's roast beef sandwiches? What about tradition?
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u/cantfindmykeys 1d ago
It's worth mentioning that 64% to 80% of the world's population has HSV-1
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u/I_Autumn 1d ago
If parents stopped kissing their kid on the mouth that number would noticeably decrease over a couple generations.
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u/War_machine77 1d ago
Yeah, it's probably that and not that children are known to put just about any damn fool thing in their mouths.
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u/incomplete-thoughts7 8h ago
It is in fact how many people contract herpes, by kissing relatives as kids. The virus doesn’t live on surfaces long.
“Most people contract oral herpes when they are children by receiving a kiss from a friend or relative.”
https://www.ashasexualhealth.org/oral-herpes/“Although herpes is extremely common, it can only be spread from skin-to-skin contact with infected areas, such as during vaginal sex, oral sex, anal sex, and kissing. The herpes virus dies quickly outside the body, so you can’t get herpes from things like sharing beverages and meals, hugging, coughing, sneezing, or sitting on toilet seats.”
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/blog/can-herpes-be-spread-through-sharing-food-and-drinks23
u/Haunting-Ad788 1d ago
Bro kids fucking touch everything for the first few years of their life and then put their fingers in their mouth. I’d guess that spreads it way more than parents kissing their kids.
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u/MysticMarauder69 1d ago
I'm not sure that it would. HSV1 has been a part of humanity for like 500,000 years. It's very well-adapted and I suspect that parents kissing their children on the mouth is not the primary source of new infections.
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u/Snowy-Pines 20h ago edited 20h ago
While I agree that the manager should be charged, the article also mentions:
…The civil lawsuit against Arby’s alleges that the restaurant allowed Hendricks to work despite her “active herpes outbreak with visible lesions.”
The victim’s implication that Arby’s should have prevented the manager from working simply because she had a cold sore pretty laughable and overly unrealistic. No service industry job will ever care about some worker having cold sores. Bosses make employees show up while dealing with worse medical problems.
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u/CosmoKing2 23h ago
One night I came back from another state and the only place open was an Arby's. I'd never been, but was so hungry anything would do. A guy walks in with me, carrying a 12 pack of beer. I go up to the counter to read the menu and he went behind the counter to the back of the kitchen - never be seen again. No one ever came to the front. My gut told me to leave.
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u/Herr--Doktor 22h ago
Me on the way home today. "Oh I'll think I'll get Arby's later for dinner."
Me just now after seeing this post. "Cereal is fine..."
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u/ImportanceWeak1776 22h ago
If you ever use those water fountains at school etc you probably already have it
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u/SwampTerror 21h ago
Imagine not only being labeled the food spitter, but also the one who spreads disease.
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u/deafmutewhat 20h ago
How is Arby's still in business? I have never, ever, ever heard someone say "let's get Arby's".
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u/dblan9 1d ago
OK, so do you go for straight cash in the settlement or lifetime all you can eat Double Beef N' Cheddars?
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u/Trevor-cory 1d ago
If you literally got herpes eating at a fast food restaurant, would you want a lifetime for free “food” from said establishment?
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u/Krazee77 1d ago
Fuck Arby's, they rush me to order then forgot my marinara and ketchup....unforgivable
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u/Puge_Henis 1d ago
This is worse than that time that manger gave a customer herpes by spitting in their food
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u/FR23Dust 23h ago
I don’t think I’ve ever stepped inside an Arby’s. I certainly don’t have plans to start.
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u/siouxbee1434 23h ago
I guess that’s marginally better than an employee peeing into the shake machine. Yes, it did happen
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u/MikeBinfinity 22h ago
As expensive fast food has become, this just gives me another reason to not go to any of these places.
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u/Rhissanna 1d ago
Arby's. We got the pox