Jonathan Adams for msnbc.com

Newborn Kendall Paciorek is fed by her big sister, Madison, 4, on her first day home from the hospital. Kendall was born prematurely when her mother contracted listeria after eating contaminated cantaloupe. Kendall has little energy for feeding, so when she refuses a bottle, she must be fed through a stomach tube.

Three months after she was born, Kendall Paciorek is finally home, just in time for Christmas.

The premature girl from Fishers, Ind., is one of the tiniest victims of last summer’s deadly listeria outbreak in cantaloupe, which sickened 146 people, including 30 who died.

Kendall spent the first several weeks of her life in an incubator, fighting off an infection contracted when her mother ate tainted melon traced to Jensen Farms of Holly, Colo.

She’s strong enough now to sleep in her own crib in the house where big sister Madison, 4, loves to color pictures of Santa.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak over this month, and the rest of the world seems poised to move on.

But for Kendall and her family, the impact of the foodborne illness caused by a summer snack is just beginning.

“Right now they don’t know what’s going to happen to her in the long term,” said Michelle Wakley-Paciorek, Kendall’s 41-year-old mother. “We were told she could have mental and or physical delays.”

Kendall was one of three newborns diagnosed with listeria infections in the outbreak that largely affected the elderly, according to the CDC. Four pregnant women became ill; one had a miscarriage.

For now, there’s no sign of serious trouble, other than the feeding tube that runs into Kendall’s stomach because the baby has had difficulty eating.

Jonathan Adams for msnbc.com

Dad Dave Paciorek, sister Madison and mom Michelle Wakley-Paciorek are grateful to bring baby Kendall home from the hospital in time for Christmas.

With help, she’s gained weight, now topping 7 pounds, up from 3 pounds, 11 ounces when she arrived suddenly on Sept. 21.

That was a week after the federal Food and Drug Administration announced a voluntary recall of the entire crop of fresh, whole cantaloupe from Jensen Farms.

But for Kendall and her mom, it was already too late.  

“We’re thinking I ate cantaloupe sometime in the first three to four weeks of August,” Wakley recalled. “I ate it probably multiple times. You try to eat better because you’re pregnant.”

Wakley never became violently ill. Instead, she suffered headaches, muscle aches, fever and chills for several weeks before she started having contractions during a pedicure.

“I couldn’t even believe I was in labor,” said Wakley, who was rushed to an emergency department and given drugs to halt delivery.  

Despite the effort, Kendall was born hours later, but so small and sick that doctors feared for her life.

Blood tests later revealed that both mother and baby were infected with listeria later traced to the tainted Colorado cantaloupe.

The months since then have been a blur of hospital rooms, doctors’ visits and worried conversations about Kendall’s future.

“You almost panic because they tell you about all kinds of learning disabilities and other problems,” she said. “It’s been like an emotional roller-coaster.”

It’s not clear whether Wakley can continue working, or whether she’ll need to quit her job to care for Kendall and her sister full-time. Her husband, Dave Paciorek, 41, is a senior manager at Federal Express.

The family has hired Seattle food safety lawyer Bill Marler, to represent them in a private lawsuit to make sure their daughter gets any care she needs. Marler said he has about 45 clients with cases tied to the Jensen Farms outbreak, including families of 10 of the people who died.

So far, Kendall Paciorek is the youngest victim he represents, Marler said. "I think there are probably dozens of those cases out there," he added.

Food and Drug Administration inspectors found that the outbreak was traced to dirty equipment, faulty sanitation and bad storage practices at the Colorado farm.

That’s especially galling to Michelle Wakley, who said she’s gotten over the “why me?” phase of shock about her daughter’s illness. Even as she prepares to celebrate Christmas with Kendall at home, she finds it hard to hide her frustration that simple sanitation could have saved her family such heartache.

“It’s reckless. It’s something that could have been prevented,” Wakley said. “No one should have to go through this.”

Related stories:

Lives devastated by listeria as cantaloupe outbreak grows  

Consumers couldn't have washed away cantaloupe contamination

Government health officials issued a final tally Thursday for a months-long outbreak of listeria food poisoning in contaminated cantaloupe: 146 sick and 30 dead.

Those numbers reflected infections in 28 states tied to tainted whole melons from Jensen Farms of Holly, Colo., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Faulty processing and shipping practices at the firm's Granada, Colo., packing facility led to the dozens of illnesses and deaths -- and decimated the melon market in several states.

The outbreak is the worst since a California listeria outbreak in 1985 in which contaminated Mexican-style fresh cheese caused 52 deaths, including many stillbirths, according to the CDC.

Among 140 ill people who offered information about what they ate, 94 percent reported eating cantaloupe in the month before they got sick, including many who said it came from one region in southeastern Colorado. The outbreak of listeria monocytogenes, the first detected in melons, led to at least 142 hospitalizations and a miscarriage.

More than 310,000 cases of potentially tainted cantaloupes were shipped to at least 24 states between July 29 and Sept. 10.

Twenty-eight people are now dead after contracting listeria infections tied to contaminated cantaloupe, federal health officials reported Tuesday.

A total of 133 people have been sickened by the outbreak, which continues to claim victims more than a month after fresh, whole melons grown and packed at Jensen Farms in Holly, Colo., were recalled, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Dirty equipment, poor sanitation and bad storage techniques were blamed for the outbreak, which has led to illnesses in 26 states, federal Food and Drug Administration officials announced last week. Members of Congress have asked Jensen Farm owners to appear at a staff briefing likely scheduled for next week and to bring all relevant documents from the outbreak.

Deaths tied to the listeria-tainted cantaloupe have been reported in a dozen states, including seven in Colorado, five in New Mexico, three in Kansas, two each in Louisiana, Missouri, New York and Texas and one each in Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Four illnesses were related to pregnancy, with one illness diagnosed in a newborn and one miscarriage reported.

Ed Andrieski / AP

Cantaloupes rot in the afternoon heat on a field on the Jensen Farms near Holly, Colo., last month. Whole fruit contaminated with listeria have been blamed for 25 deaths in the worst food poisoning outbreak in the U.S. in a quarter century.

Now that federal investigators have identified dirty equipment, faulty sanitation and bad storage practices at a Colorado farm as the likely cause of a cantaloupe listeria outbreak that has killed 25 people, top U.S. food safety experts say there's one actor in this deadly drama that shouldn't be blamed: The consumer.

No amount of washing, scrubbing, bleaching or peeling would have cleaned cantaloupes contaminated by Jensen Farms' packing practices enough to remove listeria bacteria that has sickened at least 123 people and killed 25 in the deadliest outbreak in a quarter-century.

"There's nothing consumers could have done," said Dr. Doug Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.

Federal Food and Drug Administration officials reported Wednesday that standing pools of water, inaccessible drains, hard-to-clean equipment and failure to cool cantaloupes fresh from the field before placing them in cold storage all likely contributed to the growth and spread of four strains of listeria bacteria at the Jensen Farms packing site in Granada, Colo.

The cold, moist environment maintained over time is exactly what listeria needs to thrive, said Dr. Mike Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a food safety expert at the University of Minnesota.

In addition, listeria could have been introduced into the packing center from sporadic bacteria in the field or from a dump truck that hauled culled cantaloupe back and forth to a cattle yard and then parked next to where the whole melons were being processed. Cattle are known reservoirs for listeria.

The bacteria clearly contaminated a huge proportion of the more than 310,000 cases of cantaloupe -- between 1.5 million and 4.5 million fruit -- that were recalled by Jensen Farms in mid-September, said Powell.

"Given that 25 people are dead, this was a massive contamination to have that impact," he said.

It's not clear whether people were infected by bacteria that clung to the fruit's porous, bumpy rind, whether the germs somehow migrated into the flesh of the fruit, or whether people spread contamination through the fruit by slicing it with a knife, Powell said. Good hygiene and food safety practices can lessen the chance of infection, but the contamination shouldn't be there in the first place.

"The idea that this is the consumer's responsibility is just nonsense," he said. "What's missing is any verification that individual farmers are doing what they're supposed to be doing."

Preventing the conditions that allowed the outbreak to occur and continue is the primary goal of the FDA's ongoing food safety efforts said the agency's commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg.

“If we’re to have a food safety system that truly prevents foodborne illness, we must all practice prevention,” she told reporters.

That's particularly incumbent on melon growers, who have felt the brunt of consumer fear as sales of cantaloupes have plummeted.

"Don't rely on paperwork if your brand relies on selling safe food," Powell said. "Any commodity is only as good as its worst grower."

Related posts:

Dirty equipment blamed for deadly outbreak in cantaloupe