A 10th person has died in the listeria outbreak that shuttered a Boar’s Head deli meat plant, federal health officials said Wednesday.
At least 59 people in 19 states have been sickened by the bacteria first detected in liverwurst made at the Jarratt, Virginia, plant. Illnesses were reported between late May and late August, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. All of those who fell ill were hospitalized.
The latest fatality was reported in New York, bringing the total deaths to two each in New York and South Carolina and one each in Illinois, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee and New Mexico.
This is crazy. I guess I am kind of confused and the article explains nothing… what are they doing to stop this? They closed down a plant but what else? How did this person 3 months later still get contaminated meat? Also I guess I just assumed people would stop selling Boars Head until it’s safe again, but clearly that’s also not happening, so what are they doing? If I was a deli there is no way I would be offering up boars head right now.
The contaminated meats have been recalled, obviously, but that relies on vendors to actually go through their stock and pull them from shelves. For major supermarkets and businesses they’re used to doing that for all sorts of products. But small businesses may not be paying attention nearly as closely.
And that doesn’t take into account products that had been purchased by a consumer before the recall, but stored until more recently. I regularly buy things like meat when it is on sale and freeze it for use months later, especially when it’s a premium product I otherwise wouldn’t get.
The bacteria that causes Listeria is extremely resilient and can survive on surfaces for a long time. There’s one known case of it persisting for 10 years in a meat processing plant. It can survive in cold temperatures and even in salty and acidic environments.
That means it could still be stuck to deli slicers, deli counters, deli fridges, people’s fridges, people’s counters, etc. And it spreads through not just Boar’s Head products directly, but through every product that came in contact with any equipment that came in contact with Boar’s Head products.
This needed more than just a recall. It needed education for consumers and decontamination rules and instructions for delis and grocery stores, followed by thorough surface testing.
I lucked out - the deli I use doesn’t sell any dirty Boar’s Head slop. If they did, I’d probably drop them permanently.
Most likely theyve been sick for a while. Though I don’t know much about listeria. That plant should be nuked from orbit
They have. And for any remaining plants they are dropping liverwurst from production.
What we really need is better proactive safety inspections in food production, and jail time for production management and company leadership in the case of negligently unsanitary practices, like the ones found in this facility.
We won’t get it, though. Regulations are bad for business, and you can’t hurt the job creators… but that’s kind of the point of regulations. They are there to make not following the letter of the law more impactful than following it.