RECALL - BOARS HEAD DELI MEATS 8-10-24

first of all um what groups are most at risk for that are some people more at risk than others yeah I just got off the phone with the CDC so they really wanted to emphasize it's people who are either older say over 65 um people who are imun compromised in compromised immune systems or people who are pregnant those are the people who are most at risk um most of us have immune systems that can handle this you know leria is kind of ubiquitous it's in the soil it's in the water it's in decaying vegetables and we may be exposed to it and have some self-limited symptoms including diarrhea maybe nausea and vomiting but we kick it out of our systems ourselves the problem is in these imuno compromised people this it not only gets into the intestinal tract but it can get into the bloodstream once it's in the bloodstream it can actually go to the Head it can cause menitis and sephtis and people can get really sick of the 33 people uh of the 43 people who have been infected there have been three deaths as of as of Friday well how did they even discover this because you a lot of the symptoms you're mentioning could be anything right right so it you know it's kind of fascinating it's like microb Hunters you know the book that that a lot of us doctors wanting to be read as a kid um back at the end of May somebody got sick and as all these cases start it starts with that case report that first person who eats something gets sick and now you have the FDA the CDC and the USDA United States Department of Agriculture all trying to figure out you know what did you eat when did you eat it I me I don't even remember what I had this morning for breakfast right and they have to go back and maybe something they ate a few days ago and then they Trac it um they were real detectives so they found out that there were a positive um culture in unopen package of um of delicatess that had uh liver worst one in Maryland one in New York and they said okay where did this come from boom they traced it back to a facility in Virginia and then they did the recall so what are the actual symptoms for people because they might have some of the symptoms that you just mentioned but how was it actually diagnosed yeah well the way you diagnosed you know it's it's very interesting because the tip of the iceberg is what we're seeing right now right there probably a lot more people who do get infected although it's not one of the most common infections in terms of gastroenteritis but it does happen and then we may not know about it when we know about it is when somebody gets really sick and when they get really sick it's when it goes into the bloodstream and starts affecting other parts of the body and the way they diagnose that can be through a blood culture they can do a spinal tap they can see abnormalities in the spinal fluid they can even grow out some of the organisms there and U you know it's a big deal when people everybody is hospitalized with this who gets it uh and they can be treated with antibiotics so it's just a course of antibiotics that they take them in it's course of antibiotics but you know you have to hand it you know they're taking a lot of heat you know these these federal health organizations you have to hand it to them they got on it right away um there are 43 cases which is a lot but about three times that was with a cantaloupe outbreak in in 2011 and there were 33 deaths back then so you know you don't hear you don't even think about these organizations and what they're doing when things go right uh but when things go wrong that's when they take a lot of heat so I do hand it to them on this yeah in our last 15 seconds or so has there been a response from B said what are they saying now I think that you know they've been very responsible from what I've been reading in terms of it doing the recalls and you know in an abundance of of caution actually recalling things uh uh above above that but remember the CDC is saying look if you are in one of these high vulnerable groups then um you shouldn't eat slice deli meat or even any deli meat that's even its prepackage unless you preheat it to 165 deg F or steaming hot make sure you let it cool so that's very important and for for you know other people obviously you know there's a recall number and I wanted to add that and have it on the screen um the pre packag Deli products that say est1 12612 or P1 12612 uh inside the USDA Mark of inspection on the product labels those are the ones that have been recalled and hopefully it's up there on the screen too yes it is all right Dr John lauk really good information thanks so much Dr take care well tell