All our lives, we have been cautioned against buying any food or drug product when the packaging has already been opened or the tamperproof seal has been broken. These fears are based upon the fear someone could have tampered with a product and put it back on store shelves. However, as we have seen time and time again, it is often problems in the manufacturing process that leads to contaminated foods finding their way to store shelves.
According to a recent news release from the Food Poisoning Bulletin, three have died, and others have become extremely ill after what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suspect was contaminated ice cream. Authorities say a very rare strain of listeria was found in victims, and that strain was traced back and matched to a strain of listeria in an ice cream novelty-making machine at a Blue Bell production facility in Texas. Blue Bell is a large ice cream manufacturer with distribution throughout the United States.
When doctors determined these victims had listeria, a food history was taken. All patients reported to have recently eaten ice cream products from Blue Bell. Months into this wave of illness, state health workers in South Carolina were conducting random safety inspections of Blue Bell ice cream products and found this rare strain of listeria. They contacted Texas officials, who inspected the factory and found a machine designed to scoop ice cream for use in single serve products was responsible for the contamination. In total, there were four extremely rare strains of listeria found on the machine.
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