E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSAn outbreak of listeria infections tied to contaminated Colorado cantaloupe has now sickened 116 people and left 23 dead, federal health officials reported Wednesday, making this the deadliest outbreak in more than 25 years. In addition, one pregnant woman who became ill had a miscarriage.
The rising toll reflects illnesses and deaths in 25 states caused by four outbreak strains of listeria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All of the illnesses began on or after July 31, but more are expected because people can develop listeriosis up to two months after eating contaminated food.
An investigation into the cause of the outbreak linked to recalled cantaloupe from Jensen Farms in Holly, Colo., has not yet concluded, a federal Food and Drug Administration spokesman said.
Deaths have been reported in a dozen states, including five in Colorado; five in New Mexico; two each in Kansas, Louisiana and Texas; and one each in Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma and Wyoming.
Miscarriage blamed on listeria-tainted cantaloupe
The 23 deaths have surpassed 21 deaths tied to a listeria outbreak in 1998 tied to contaminated hot dogs and deli meat.
Illnesses have been reported in people aged 22 to 96, with a median age of 78. Most of those sickened are older than 60. Four of the illnesses were related to a pregnancy; one was diagnosed in a newborn and three were diagnosed in pregnant women.
Recalls tied to the outbreak include more than 300,000 cases of whole cantaloupes from Jensen Farms, and two different recalls of cut cantaloupe: A Sept. 23 recall of nearly 600 pounds of fresh cantaloupe from Carol's Cuts LLC of Kansas and an Oct. 6 recall of nearly 5,000 individual packages of cantaloupe by Fruit Fresh Up Inc. of Depew, N.Y.
Read more on food safety issues:
As farmers thrive, so do concerns
Flood of food imported, just 2 percent inspected
Leave a Comment:
Funny how this is a "cantaloupe" death toll (in the MSNBC headline), but if it were on chicken or beef it would be a "listeria" death toll.
Food doesn't kill people, @!$%#ting where you eat kills people.
HBow is it ppl are still eating these melons w/all the news about them?
23 out of 300 million people/??? yeah that's real serious???
Yep, if you were one of the 23, your family would think it was pretty serious.
top_hatter: It is my understanding that the contaminated melons were either all pulled or would've gone bad by now. Listeria has a very long incubation period from the time of being infected to the onset of illness.
@dano.. read the article.. 23 people killed... 300 million melons recalled!!!!!! get it.
@ the mad hatter... people arent still eating the melons.. it takes time for symtoms to show up with this bacteria.. i had it once.. took me 2 weeks to show the first symptom.. i guess sometimes it takes 8 weeks.
It's not necessarily that people are still eating the melons. Listeria can linger in the stomach for up to 70 days without showing any symptoms. Furthermore, it took the FDA a staggering 48 days to order a recall after the first person fell ill. The death toll is likely to continue to rise.
That's 100% correct, Fianchetto, "@!$%#ting where you eat" is what kills people. Tell us all now, if your Reich-wing Tea Bagger heroes manage to buy their way into power, how many hundreds of thousands -- or millions -- of U.S. Citizens will have to die when EPA / FDA / USDA regulations are done a way with just because the Big Business Wall Street Billionaires want to save a buck or two?
dude I'm a socialist, an environmentalist, vegetarian and a water treatment professional who deals daily with civilization @!$%#ting where they eat. My point was the sensationalism in the article which tends to stir up outrage when fruits and vegetables cause public health crises, while usually ignoring the reasons why our food is so often contaminated. The last thing I would want is less regulation and oversight.
Nice call though.
koch brothers. halleburton. bush. wmds. cia. fox.
top_hatter, listeriosis takes WEEKS to make most people sick enough to shows symptoms. It ain't like eating a can of beans and then you start farting a few hours later.
How is it that "ppl" are still so uneducated about listeriosis "w/all" the news about it?
it requires more than fifteen seconds (typical american attention span) to read past the headlines.
I'm stickin with eating waller melons!
It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out the melons are still out there being sold in grocery and quicky markets, mainly its difficult to face losses throwing products out, plus too often the melon labels are pulled off each fruit and the crates displayed are from other fruit products, so to save lives these melons should be removed altogether, its a monetary loss but a tax write off at the end of the year. This being said how about making sure there are sufficient sanitary conditions for farm workers before this turns into a full fledged "fruit plague" of modern times.
Funny how this is a "cantaloupe" death toll (in the MSNBC headline), but if it were on chicken or beef it would be a "listeria" death toll.
23 out of 300 million people/??? yeah that's real serious???
And - the US Government lets people who think like these guys vote? Wonder if they know how unintelligent their comments truly are?
I was pointing out sensationalism in media in fruit/vegetable coverage vs meat. The headline really said "cantaloupe death toll" as if a tsunami of melons rolled over NYC.
Oh, and yeah the government "lets" all citizens vote, whether or not they agree with corn-pone fascists like yourself. That's in the Constitution, or do you have a problem with that document as well?
Time to make the doughnuts, i'd rather die from too much sugar at this point.
To bad that most of you have not grown up yet. Do you think that loosing a loved one is a small thing to happen? Why make jokes about it and laugh it off? This problem, whether you choose to believe it or not is pretty bad. Even the loss of someone (maybe someone you know) is a big problem and loss for his or hers family. So please put your jokes where they belong and use you G-D given brain and thank the Lord you are not one of the "someones".
@ Stuart W: You are so very correct! "They wouldn't find it very comical if a person they admired, loved or cared about was a victim"..........................wouldn't they?
I was on this very farm today. The farm is very well managed and sanitation is a high priorty.. The melons were all given a chlorax rinse before they were shipped. Listeria is present everywhere and has not been found to be in high concentrations anywhere on this farm. This hysteria will cause several small businesses to go broke and result in more imported produce. ALWAYS WASH ALL PRODUCE THROUGHLY BEFORE YOU EAT IT. It has passed thru many hands.
The listeria is deep in the rind, surface washing won't help. 116 people ill and 23 dead, they suffered a miserable death. Death from infection is extremely painful with organs shutting down. Doctors are not doing enough, God forbid worse things happen and they will, too. This is only the beginning, sign on for FDA.gov alerts and drug/food recalls. You'll see.
One additional comment. Nobody locally has even gotten sick and the cantalopes are very good.
That's not true, people in Colorado did get sick. 5 died in Colorado, did you read the article above?
sunnytoo: The entire state of CO is not local. Local typically means those in the immediate area. In the case of this farm - that means those in Holly, CO. According to several articles I've read no one in Holly, CO has become ill from listeria.
steve wertz was probably referring to Holly, CO as being local.
That's what they get for hiring illegal criminal aliens.
Where did you get your information? would you be willing to go pick melons?
Let's just keep blaming China until this all blows over.
Listerine might help?
One of the confirmed deaths in Kansas was a guy I was acquanted with. He had just recovered from a chemo session after being dx'd with Leukemia a month earlier. Although his immune system was shot, he was up and around and seemed to be doing fine just prior to eating the melon. Made it thru cancer and radiation and was done in by a piece of fruit. Sad, crazy world.
JoNel Aleccia: you want a story? check out what Gadolinium does to people, immediate and latent up to 18 months, it's used for the metal injected into people for contrasted MRI scans, you need metal for the magnets, This is another great coverup story. Healthcare and DaVita and Yale. see MRI-side-effects.com and gadolinium toxicity, accumulation of it, how it shows up in the skin, skin biopsy makes the diagnosis, but the symptoms manifests as neurological or renal failure. never get injected with any "dye" for xray images or CT images, that's why the iodine is less used, but MRI's are said to be safer, no iodine dyes used, this is a lie. Toxic Gadolinium is a rare earth metal with ferro magentic properties. can also be used for RFID. See US Dept of HHS FDA CDER (CDER) October 2011 CMC, about physical-chemical identifiers into oral dosage form drug products for Anticounterfeiting, that's what they say, but they also want to track when people take their medications/costs, reactions. Gadolinium is one way to get metal into the body, in the skin, or in the bones , wreaks havoc, The MD's behind this write the articles and the standards how to diagnose. NSF triggers lawsuits and they deserve it, too, they have no plans to stop using it, in fact, they use 3x the dose for MRA's FDA approved in 2008. There is no cure, it's fatal, not any of them are one bit concerned to relieve symptoms of those suffering not a full diagnosis of NSF, but even an adverse reaction even if latent. I know, I figured it out from my skin sores this summer and my decreased renal function last year and the "brain tumor" from 2 MRI's at the VA in Sept and Dec last year, contact me. I'll show you. Search burg-simpson.com, see the trial of GE re the nurse who sued and won due to the devastating effects of this poison. It's the great coverup for all the new symptoms that can't be explained and your doctors laugh at you, say you have depression, fibromyalgia and other things you don't have or can't explain, yet they don't do any workup, except maybe order another contrasted MRI, to further poison you. Inflammation, allergy, don't know what's wrong with you, all your labs are normal, yeah, the ones they show you if at all. But, they were not normal. I know, Increased dermal mucin in the skin is not normal. Neither was/is the R arm pain that causes tears when I move my arm, or the muscle fatigue or weakness, constant deep R rib cage pain, like a knife, these symptoms, not even a kind word or a workup, because they knew all along what the MRI gadolinium did/does. I fired them, too. I can't access windows live, so this comment is here for the reporter, but also to help any of you understand what some mysterious symptoms you may have that are unexplained or meds don't work for you or you react to meds frequently. Search it, please, save your life. They won't tell you. $$$$$$$
When are they going to find out the source!!?!?!?!?
When the Federal budget cuts, it is going to affect programs and departments, such as FDA; and the domino effects are affecting the Main Street.
Number of the 2009 H1N1 strain of flu-related deaths that occurred between April 2009 and April 10, 2010: between about 8,870 and 18,300, according to the CDC. Let's stop the panic.
nobody is to blaim
ozy is in trouble see
The almighty dollar strikes again! Profit over safety and quality, that's the new American business motto!
you people ready to wake up yet?? 4 different strains all at the same time??? anyone with a brain knows this is orchestrated. either someone is putting the screws to this particular food processor, or someone (group) is just trying to cause havoc. this is not a coincidence. a real reporter would ask someone at the cdc if these strains are bioweapons related. a reap reporter would ask if these strains have shown up somewhere else. a real reporter would ask if these strains can show up like this all together naturally. it's effing time we had some real reporting. and I don't mean about the Kardashians!!!