Some 100 journalists and others who attended last week's Mothers Against Drunk Driving national awards luncheon in St. Louis came down with food poisoning. MADD's email to participants:

I hope you enjoyed your stay in St. Louis as well as the MADD Media Awards luncheon. It was a pleasure to recognize your outstanding work at our conference.

While we did have a wonderful conference, approximately 100 people from MADD came down with some flu like symptoms including nausea, vomiting and chills. Some were taken to ER for dehydration but most rested and regained strength for the trip home. We are working very closely with the St. Louis Department of Health to determine whether it was a virus or bacteria. I truly hope you were not affected and if you were, we sincerely apologize and hope you are feeling better now.

In compliance with the health department, they have asked MADD to give them a list of names and contact information for all who attended meal functions in the Renaissance St. Louis Grand. I will give the health department your name and phone number and they may be contacting you. If you or any of your guests were affected, please let me know.

Please feel free to call with any questions.

Thank you,

Misty Moyse
Director of Media Relations

On the list of winners it looks like Vince Beiser, who wrote a piece for Wired, is the only local to be honored. He lucked out, however, and couldn't attend the conference.