Listeria!
What is Listeria? I first heard of listeria when I was pregnant with my SECOND child……..apparantly when I was pregnant with my first, there wasn’t the same level of concern about Listeria for pregnant woman. I learned that Listeria is a bacteria that can exist in deli meat, hot dogs etc. It is a very dangerous bacteria for an unborn child.
So when I was pregnant with my second and third child, I avoided deli meats like the plague!
Then in 2008 Listeria hit the BIG TIME news in Canada. 20 people died! Maple Leaf foods was directly linked to the outbreak of listeria, and the source was traced back to machinery in their factory being contaminated by the deadly bacteria.
From Wikipedia: What is Listeria?
Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium commonly found in soil, stream water, sewage, plants, and food.[1] Each bacterium is gram-positive and rod-shaped. Listeria are known to be the bacteria responsible for listeriosis, a rare but lethal food-borne infection that has a devastating case fatality rate of 25%[2] (Salmonella, in comparison, has a less than 1% mortality rate[3]). They are incredibly hardy and able to grow in temperatures ranging from 4°C (39°F), the temperature of a refrigerator, to 37°C (99°F), the body’s internal temperature[1]. Furthermore, listerosis’s deadliness can be partially attributed to the infection’s ability to spread to the nervous system and cause meningitis.[1] Finally, Listeria has a particularly high occurrence rate in newborns because of its ability to infect the fetus by penetrating the endothelial layer of the placenta.[2]
Recent News Story on Toronto Star.com
Full list of recalled meat products
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This entry was posted on December 28, 2008 at 3:08 am and is filed under 1 with tags food poisening, Health, listeria, meat recalls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
