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5 Things You Didn’t Know (but Need to Know) about Listeria

By Michelle Forman, senior specialist, media, APHL

Listeria has reared its ugly head (and tail – flagella, technically speaking) seemingly quite a bit recently. According to FDA, there have been 14 recalls due to possible Listeria contamination so far this year. (Five of those were linked to the same spinach supplier.) And USDA’s list shows another three. While most of these recalls have not been linked to illnesses*, Listeria is extremely serious and considered a high-priority within the US food safety system. What is this nasty bacteria and why is it so serious? Here are five things that you didn’t know (but need to know) about Listeria.

5 Things You Didn’t Know (but Need to Know) about Listeria | www.APHLblog.org 1. 90% of people who get listeriosis (the infection caused by Listeria monocytogenes) are part of a high-risk group such as pregnant women, adults over 65 years and people with weakened immune systems. In fact, pregnant women are about 10-20 times (depending on the source) more likely and the elderly are four times more likely to get listeriosis than the general population. If you’re part of one of these groups, take Listeria risk very seriously.

2. Listeria has a very high mortality rate. CDC estimates that there are about 1,600 cases each year and 260 die (approximately 16%). By comparison, CDC estimates 19,000 Salmonella cases each year and 380 die (approximately 2%).

5 Things You Didn’t Know (but Need to Know) about Listeria | www.APHLblog.org 3. Listeria is unlike many other foodborne pathogens because it can grow even in the cold temperature of the refrigerator making it extra important to avoid cross contamination from uncooked meat, fish or other high risk foods. Like other foodborne pathogens, proper cooking is the most effective way to kill Listeria that is lurking on your food.

4. The incubation period for Listeria is 3-70 days. That means it could be up to 70 days after Listeria entered your body before you get sick. Many people who get foodborne illness often point to the last thing they ate as the culprit, but that’s often not the case especially with Listeria. For the purposes of an outbreak investigation, epidemiologists will look back even further – as much as 120 days prior to when a person became ill – to be sure they are really looking at every possible suspect. Can you remember what you ate 70 days ago? Or even 120 days ago?

5. The US food safety system takes Listeria extremely seriously. There is an enhanced surveillance system led by CDC called the Listeria Initiative which requires health care providers to report listeriosis cases; requires public health officials to promptly interview anyone with listeriosis to gather information that could help identify the source of infection; and requires clinical labs to send positive samples to public health laboratories for subtyping using PFGE (DNA fingerprinting). The DNA fingerprints are uploaded to PulseNet, the national network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories that connect foodborne illness cases together to detect clusters of bacteria that make people sick. All of this helps accelerate outbreak detection and surveillance, and decreases the amount of time it takes to stop an outbreak from progressing.

* While there have been 17 recalls due to possible Listeria contamination, most have not been linked to illness. Five national PulseNet clusters of illness have been detected and reported to epidemiologists this year. Four of those clusters have led to epidemiologic investigations. As of now, three of those investigations are still open and active. One of those investigations has led to a confirmed source and is still considered active.

Food Safety Funding Cuts in Action

By Michelle Forman, senior media specialist, APHL

It seems that our blog post “Could funding cuts to food safety programs make you sick?” on the impact of funding cuts on food safety programs was unintentionally timely. The current nationwide stone fruit recall is a real-life demonstration of the hypothetical situation outlined in our story.

As explained in an article on FoodSafetyNews.com, Australian tests found Listeria on fruit exported from the US. Not tests performed in this country. On December 31, 2012, a valuable and relatively inexpensive federal program called the Microbiological Data Program (MDP) – a program that did 80% of the federal US testing on fruits and vegetables (FDA did the other 20%) at the low price of $5 million per year – was intentionally allowed to lapse by Congress. In the absence of this US program, American consumers were not protected from exposure to the Listeria that might have been on the fruit sold in our markets.

Here’s the quick timeline:

July 10 – Australian company discovered Listeria on fruits; the amount of Listeria fell within the tolerance level for Australia, but the FDA has a zero-tolerance policy
July 12 – California’s Wawona Packing Co. shut down packing operations and ordered testing by a private laboratory
July 17 – Wawona learned from the lab that three pieces of fruit tested positive for Listeria. They decided to order additional testing on other fruits from the same lot. While they waited, they thoroughly cleaned and sanitized their packaging facility.
July 21 – The lab reported that tests on additional fruits were negative. Wawona felt confident that entire lots of fruit were not contaminated and there was not a significant risk to the public, but decided to issue a recall anyway.
July 22 – Wawona issued a voluntary recall of all fruits packed between July 1 and July 12 (when the company stopped production)

Wawona Packing Co. responded to the information that was sent from Australia quickly and aggressively. They were not required to stop production or issue a recall in the US, but they did. Their response was handled quite well.

The problem here is that a critical program, MDP, could have discovered this contamination sooner. By the time Wawona was able to respond, the potentially contaminated fruit was already in the market and quite likely already consumed. It is safe to assume that MDP would have tested fruit sooner than the Australians simply because of the absence of prolonged international shipping time.

American consumers can be appreciative of the Australians for alerting Wawona to the Listeria contamination in their produce. And we are glad that Wawona responded as quickly as they were able. But there were still 11 days between when the first questionable lot of fruit was shipped and when production was halted. If we want to intercept contaminated produce before it lands on our plates, we need to appropriately fund the local, state and federal programs designed to do so. People may or may not get sick from this fruit, but we don’t want to take that gamble with every recall.

There still have not been any reported cases of Listeria associated with the recalled stone fruits, although it is important to note that Listeria infections can take up to 70 days (yes, 70!) to present symptoms.

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5 Things You Didn’t Know (but Need to Know) about Listeria

Food Safety Funding Cuts in Action

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