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A lifelong lover of liverwurst, Sue Fleming relished the smoked sausage her husband brought home every few weeks from the grocery store deli.
Patrick Fleming always made sure to buy Boar’s Head braunschweiger, the type she liked best, even though it could be costlier than other brands.
“My whole family loves braunschweiger," Sue Fleming said. "On bread with lettuce, a little mayo, a slice of pickle.”
But the 88-year-old from High Ridge, Missouri, is rethinking her favorite snack after she fell ill as part of a deadly listeria food poisoning outbreak linked to a nationwide recall of 7 million pounds of Boar’s Head deli meats.
The retired psychotherapist and author said she spent nine days in a hospital and 11 in a rehabilitation center last month because of what doctors confirmed was a listeria infection. She and her husband are suing Boar’s Head and Schnuck Markets Inc., which sold the deli meat, according to court documents filed July 26 in a Missouri court.
As of early August, 43 people had gotten sick and three of them died — one in New Jersey, one in Illinois and one in Virginia.
“We wanted no one else to be harmed,” Fleming said in an interview.
Boar’s Head also faces a class action lawsuit filed Aug. 1 in federal court in New York. Rita Torres of Queens County alleges that the company improperly and deceptively marketed its products and that she would not have purchased it if the company had warned that it was contaminated with listeria.
Health officials in Maryland and New York detected listeria in unopened Boar’s Head liverwurst products and later confirmed it was the same strain of bacteria that was making people sick. The company issued an initial recall on July 25 and then expanded it on July 30 to include more than 70 products, made at its plant in Jarratt, Virginia.
Fleming’s illness underscores the potential severity of listeria infections in vulnerable people, particularly older people, those who are pregnant or who have weakened immune systems. Victims in the outbreak range in age from 32 to 94 — with a median age of 74, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
For most people, food poisoning caused by bacteria such as listeria is an inconvenience that may involve a few days of nausea and diarrhea. But for those most at risk, the infections can be more dangerous and even deadly, said Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University.
“The pathogen can cross from your gut into your blood and cause invasive illness,” Kowalcyk said.
Listeria infections cause about 1,600 illnesses each year in the U.S. and about 260 people die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pregnant women are about 10 times more likely to contract infections caused by listeria than the general population, according to the CDC. Such infections can cause miscarriage or severe illness in babies after birth. One person who was pregnant was sickened in the outbreak, but did not lose the baby, CDC said.
Ashley Solberg of Minnesota sued Boar's Head on Aug. 7, claiming she “nearly lost her unborn child,” according to documents filed in federal court. She said she was 35 weeks pregnant with her second child in May when she bought deli meat produced by Boar's Head and sold at a Publix market in Hollywood, Florida. After returning to Minnesota, Solberg became severely ill with a listeria infection that was confirmed to match the outbreak strain. She was hospitalized for six days and received antibiotics for more than a week, the lawsuit said.
In Missouri, Fleming’s doctors worried about sepsis, a dangerous blood infection, or whether the bacteria had spread to her heart or her brain. As it was, the infection worsened Fleming’s previous health problems, including severe spinal arthritis. She was ill for weeks and too weak to walk, her husband said.
“I became very scared on Sue’s behalf and afraid of losing her,” he said.
Listeria is also dangerous for older people because they may eat less diverse diets and keep foods for longer periods of time. Unlike other germs, the bacteria survive and even grow during refrigeration, Kowalcyk said. Past listeria outbreaks involving cantaloupe, for instance, harmed a larger proportion of older people who bought pre-cut cantaloupe instead of whole melon.
It can take days or weeks for symptoms of a listeria infection to appear, making it hard to pin down what caused it. Because all listeria infections must be reported, county health officials called Fleming and asked her to fill out a detailed questionnaire that included “dozens and dozens” of foods, Patrick Fleming said.
The couple narrowed down possible culprits to pre-made tuna salad and chicken salad, pepperjack cheese — and the braunschweiger.
Boar’s Head urges consumers to throw away the recalled products or return them to the store for a refund. By now, deli meats affected by the Boar’s Head recall should be off the shelves of local stores, Kowalcyk said. Consumers should feel free to ask deli managers whether they’ve complied with the recall and sanitized deli slicers.
Heating deli meat to steaming, a temperature of about 165 degrees Fahrenheit, can kill the bacteria.
But if there’s any question, "throw it out,” Kowalcyk said. “Is throwing away a few dollars’ worth of deli meats worth preventing a serious illness?”
