Why Do We Constantly See Listeria Outbreaks?
For the second week in a row we see an announcement concerning our food supply. In Rationed State Part 2 – Rationing, we noted that Canada and the US has had issues with food supply stemming from contamination. But shortages result none the less, and panic is becoming common.
For the second time in two weeks we learn that listeria has been spotted in our food supply, this time in cheese. As reported by the Sun the Old Europe Cheese Inc, based in Michigan, has issued a voluntary recall of 25 of its products. Listeria is a bacterial disease that affects the elderly and those with compromised immune symptoms. It’s important to note that healthy people are NOT at risk, and may not have symptoms, according to the Mayo clinic.
The article goes on to warn that newborns and unborn babies are at risk. While it may not be a direct correlation, we continue to see many diseases and outbreak alarms that warn of possible miscarriage, while the rate of miscarriages from the mRNA vaccine is now public knowledge, yet rarely here that mRNA vaccinations raise the risk of miscarriage. A convenient outbreak indeed.
The FDA claims that there have been only 6 fatal cases of Listerosis from the date range of 2017 to 2022. The plant in question conducted a study with 120 samples, one sample has been matched to the strain of bacteria present in the FDA cases. It should be noted that NO products contained this strain at the plant. Old Europe Cheese issued the recall voluntarily, despite the fact that none of the known cases have been linked to their product.
“None of the products showed contamination, but one of the facilities’ samples tested positive. The strain from that positive sample has been linked to 6 cases of Listeriosis dating from 2017 to 2022. These cases were not previously linked to this company’s products, but Old Europe Cheese decided to issue a voluntary recall in order to avoid any risk to their customers”.
While it is prudent to take immediate action to avoid deaths, questions must be asked if you are of an inquisitive mindset. For one, if none of the factory products contained the Listeria, where did the sample containing Listeria come from? If 1 out of 120 is found, can the source be sterilized and then production continue? Should production be halted when there is less than 1% of a sample in the entire plant?
There have been 6 cases in 5 years that the FDA tracked. This is hardly an outbreak, and while we are sensitive to headlines, we are also concerned that overreach from federal agencies will disrupt supply chains unnecessarily. We have documented this with Baby Tylenol in Canada, beef in the US and now with this case. We also have raised the concern that there is a movement to place unrealistic constraints on food production that would make these recalls commonplace, and indeed make the Baby Formula issue far more common with products like meat and cheese, regular staples of our diets. Inaction by the FDA and other agencies will exacerbate the shortages.
In Rationed State Part 2 we warn that many have been discussing the inevitably of shortages and that the only way to create “sustainable” food production systems is to completely re-engineer how food is produced today. But we are blind to the fact that many of the experts who have caused shortages and have used panics, manufactured or as a consequence of mismanagement, are the ones who preach to us that we need to adhere to their new plans. What’s more, many of these so called experts are not subject matter experts, with experience in manufacturing, agriculture, economics, they are philosophers and self anointed experts who work at think tanks such as the Hastings Center and Rockefeller Institutes. They are removed from any direct experience of the healthcare or food science yet clamor for the chance to alter how food is produced and delivered. These are the same people who talk about population control. Do we trust them?