Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E93
===

Francine L Shaw: ~we can be ~99. 9 percent certain that people died that weren't counted in this outbreak.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, that is a really good point and one at which we were talking about with Bill Marler. Right. Because when he used the example, there's not a lot of millennials I'm guessing that are out there ordering liverwurst, right?

Probably not a lot of Gen Xers ordering liverwurst. So who were getting liverwurst sandwiches? It was the elderly and you're absolutely correct. I wonder, gosh, would it be fascinating to know the total number that probably died due to listerosis and we'll never know, right? Because they probably just died at the home.

And they just called it natural causes.

intro: Everybody's gotta eat, and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points, from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine L. Shaw and Matt Ragushi for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule.

Don't. Eat. Poop. Don't eat poop.

Matt Regusci: Hello, hello, Francine!

Francine L Shaw: Hey, Matt, how you doing?

Matt Regusci: I'm much better than you. You poor thing.

Francine L Shaw: Oh, I'm fine. I'm good.

Matt Regusci: This is a dedication guys, dedication. Francine has pneumonia and she is on the podcast right now. Poor thing. What'd you say? You've been battling this for a while?

Francine L Shaw: So remember I got sick, I was really sick and then I never really got better and this is what happens.

Matt Regusci: Yes. Yes. It's like, why do you just keep going?

Francine L Shaw: No, it's it's pneumonia. Remember I got sick and I was in bed for a week. I just couldn't get out of bed. And then we did the conference and I still wasn't really feeling well there. And he said, sometimes I don't know if I had COVID or the flu. But he said sometimes that just turns into pneumonia, and that's what happened.

Matt Regusci: Crazy.

Francine L Shaw: And I hate going to the doctor, and so my son and my husband always give me a hard time about this. I have allergies, like really bad seasonal allergies. So when I get sick, like oftentimes when I have like the coughing and whatever, it's like, oh, it's allergies. So they harass me all the time because I'm constantly saying, oh, it's just allergies.

Matt Regusci: So then you're like, ah, well, why go to the doctor? And then all of a sudden you're dying and then you're like, nah, maybe I should go to the doctor. Maybe this isn't seasonal allergies.

Francine L Shaw: Yeah.

Matt Regusci: Well, you can't die on me, Francine, because I don't know if I would be able to find a better. co-host. You're one in 300 million.

Francine L Shaw: Oh, that's sweet.

Matt Regusci: All right.

So this episode. Man, this is crazy. There's been so many outbreaks, but we wanted to tie a knot in Boar's Head because the outbreak is finally over, which is great because it's listeria. So those outbreaks last for a long time. So it is finally deemed over and we wanted to give the stats, give a, an overview of this.

And then there was a letter that Bill Marler posted from a widow of one of the victims of the outbreak that we thought we would Read and discuss as well.~ So. In that format, Francine, should we go through the statistics? Should we talk about it and then read the letter and then talk about that? ~

Francine L Shaw: ~Sure.~

First, I would like to literally tie a knot in Boar's Head. The whole thing's just been such a catastrophe from start to finish. Yeah. So 19 states, 19 states were impacted by this. 61 people got sick, 60 hospitalizations, and 10 people died. 10 people died.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: And I have not bought lunch meat, deli meat since this started.

~Now I know that's a little extreme, but your wife and I remember when the whole produce thing was going on with the bagged lettuce, I guess it was mixed greens. We'd go in and stand there and look and just, we couldn't bring ourselves to buy the mixed greens. Same thing. I have not bought deli meat. Since this started just ~

Matt Regusci: yeah, I think a lot of people haven't bought deli meat since this thing started like a lot Well, first off it's Boar's Head is in almost every major deli, right?

So, it's like, when Boar's Head impacted with this outbreak, that brand was everywhere. So, it was like, what do you buy? Do you still buy Boar's Head? It's probably the safest meat there is right now.

Francine L Shaw: Probably. Right now? Yes.

Matt Regusci: Like, microscope, yeah, it's probably the safest meat there is, but the brand reputation is shot.

Francine L Shaw: I have always said there's no safer place to eat than a facility that has had an outbreak right after the outbreak.

Matt Regusci: Right.

Francine L Shaw: Because they're just under a microscope during that time. But think about the delis who built their brand. around Boar's Head. That's the only deli meat that they serve. That's what they use.

They, because Boar's Head was such a signature product, so they built like their deli around the Boar's Head brand. Where are they now?

Matt Regusci: Well, and it was part of the, and I want to go back and talk about the illnesses and the deaths too, because that statistic is really interesting. But the Boar's Head business practices, I was reading into this, and they would say to delis, if you have another type of premium deli meat.

You can't buy any boar's head. So you had to either buy 100 percent boar's head meat or none. There was no in between. So that business practice alone drove like I'm sure drove a lot of people into great businesses right for many years because boar's head was ubiquitous. Everybody just knew like that was the premium.

That was the best. Let's go, which is great until it's not. ~It's a total epic failure right now where people just don't want to go buy it. ~

Francine L Shaw: Right. I guess we'll come back to these statistics later, but yeah, we need to talk about those a little further.

Matt Regusci: Tons of people ate this Boar's Head, never got sick. 100 percent were perfectly fine.

Those that are immunocompromised that listeria turned into listerosis. Boom. Bad. Like a total knock to the gut, and you end up getting hospitalized. So like, that one that wasn't hospitalized, what was that? Because to find this, you have to do spinal taps or fecal testing, combo the two. And who's going to do that unless they're hospitalized?

~There's no at home kits where fecal samples are not fun. ~

Francine L Shaw: ~I can imagine they're not. ~

Matt Regusci: So I wonder how many people, like, how many people do you think probably got sick with listerosis, but just beat it on their own. That didn't show up because this is different than E. coli because you could 20 times the people that get E. coli get sick and they just call it like the 24 hour flu and then they're over it, right? Listeria is different.

Francine L Shaw: Well, that kind of leads into what I was gonna say. These numbers we both know aren't 100 percent accurate because there were people that died.

Matt Regusci: Oh, yes.

Francine L Shaw: That weren't reported as deaths from this illness because they called it natural causes.

You know what I mean? Because they were probably elderly and it just the autopsy didn't show it or they were in a nursing home and yeah, whatever. So we can be 99. 9 percent certain that people died that weren't counted in this outbreak.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, that is a really good point and one at which we were talking about with Bill Marler.

Francine L Shaw: Right.

Matt Regusci: Because when he used the example, there's not a lot of millennials, I'm guessing, that are out there ordering liverwurst, right? Probably not a lot of Gen-Xers ordering liverwurst. So who were getting liverwurst sandwiches? It was the elderly. And you're absolutely correct. I wonder, gosh, would it be?

Fascinating to know the total number that probably died due to listerosis. And we'll never know, right? Because they probably just died at the home and they just called it natural causes.

Francine L Shaw: ~Or at home. Have you ever eaten it? ~

Matt Regusci: ~Liverwurst? Yeah. But I've eaten like everything. But I grew up with my, I was raised by my grandparents.~

~So I've eaten a lot of stuff that people would think are old people food. I've had, have you ever had head cheese? ~

Francine L Shaw: ~I can't. I live in Pennsylvania. We eat Scrapple. Yeah! Yes. I do not like it. I don't like it. ~

Matt Regusci: ~I like head cheese. ~

Francine L Shaw: ~My sister loves it. I can't do it. Can't do it. ~

Matt Regusci: ~Those of you who don't know what head cheese is, head cheese is a whole pig's head basically boiled together with different types of herbs and spices and carrots, onions, that type of stuff.~

~You just boil the heck out of it. You just peel all of that off. And it's like basically pure meat and cartilage. You mix it all together, you squish it, and then in the process of squishing it down and leaving it in the refrigerator, like overnight, all that collagen turns this into a jelly like a lunch meat like a jelly lunch meat yeah like spam think of like spam but it's kind of clear pork shoulder and ham it's uh it's head meat yeah and that's that's what that is so liverwurst is kind of a similar process right it's collagenated masked up liver if you like The flavor of organs and I just grew up eating all that because I was poor.~

~So, and my family were dairy farmers and that type of stuff. So we had all this different type of off cuts that we ate all the time. So I grew up eating that it's a very unique flavor. One of which, if you really like that flavor, there is no other thing. It's not like there's 20 different types of hams out there, right?~

~There's one type of liverwurst. Like you go and get that. ~

Francine L Shaw: ~I love Scrapple. I just had Scrapple last weekend. Is sauce, what, do you know what, what's sauce? Is that. ~

Matt Regusci: ~Yeah, so it's pickled pork trimmings, is what Sal says. I don't know, probably I've eaten it. I don't know. Most of the time I've eaten something because it's people hand me stuff and I just eat it.~

~Yeah. It's terrible to say. Yeah.~ Okay.

So let's read this letter from the widow. ~This is fascinating. Okay.~ So there are a whole lot, when I read this letter, there are a whole lot of Lines blanked out, okay? Because Bill Marler did not want any of this information of the individual people involved, I guess, this letter to be public.

Anybody who knows these people from this letter, you'll see that they'll know who this person is. But anybody who doesn't know this person isn't going to know. So there's a whole lot of lines redacted. So I am going to fill in the blanks as easy as I can and other times that it doesn't make sense, I'm just going to say blank.

Okay, just so the audience knows here, she's going to be talking about her husband a lot. She's going to use her husband's name that's redacted and I will just say my husband. Okay, so this is, this article is words from a widow, a boar's head Listeria liverwurst. It was created by Bill Marler on November 22nd, 2024.

~And his front note before the letter is You have to tell me how good this is, Francine. A note I received from a widow. I hope everyone at the FSIS and the FDA read this along with every owner of every company that produces food. That's it. That's his intro to this letter. Oh man, two sentences that are pretty profound when you read this thing.~

Francine L Shaw: ~He could have said, if not, I'll be on your doorstep. ~

Matt Regusci: ~Okay, so we're gonna read this.~ Okay, here we go. Hello, my name is blank and I am the widow of blank who died of listeria from boar's head on July 18th, 2024. My husband is better known as My husband. I'm just gonna fill in the blank like that. He was my high school sweetheart and the love of my life.

We dated in 1969 and in 1976 we married. Together for 55 years, that is a lifetime that I will always treasure. I am devastated beyond words. My husband had a horrible upbringing. His father had mental problems. and he received electric shock treatments. His father tormented my husband with his belt and cigarette burns on his legs.

He lived as a child on apples and peanut butter. Thank goodness for his grandparents. They saved him from foster care. Actually, same with me. Thank you, grandparents, for doing the same for me. Despite my husband's past abuse, He was always loving, caring, giving, comical, generous, and humble. He was a people person and was always there to lend an ear to everyone.

When we were married, Grandma said to me that I saved my husband's life and it's so nice to see him happy and in love. My family welcomed him and he received love and stability. My husband always thanked me for marrying him. And we always said to each other, I will always be there for you on earth and in heaven.

Amen. Whoever gets to heaven first, please wait for me. Wow. So he's waiting for her up there right now. Yeah, this is hard guys. On July 12th, 2024, I called the fire department for my husband. He was weak. He had body aches so bad that he had trouble turning over in bed, nausea, loss of appetite, diarrhea, fever, and he was not coherent.

We rushed him to the university medical center in blank blank. And he received good care in intensive care. My husband's last words to me was in the emergency room. And he said, I love you. ~Okay. I know. ~I have trouble sleeping. I wake up every two to three hours. My life is so empty without my husband. Can you imagine?

What was it? 50?

Francine L Shaw: 69, 69. They get met in 69.

Matt Regusci: So yeah, it's 55 years married, but much longer knowing each other and stuff. And then just boom. Okay. I have trouble sleeping. I wake up every two to three hours. My life is so empty without my husband. I have trouble getting the images of intensive care out of my mind.

all the pain and suffering. My husband had seven grand mal seizures, elevated temperatures up to 103. 6, very high temperatures that were so high the doctors placed a frozen blanket on him. Wow. He had nine drips, drying blood from his neck on a ventilator and intensive care for seven days. My family lives in Florida and my sister was always by my side.

I had a hard time accepting my husband's sickness of listeria and how fast he was deteriorating. I will always be thankful for the love, guidance, and support my sister gave me. Our neighbors always came to visit at home and in the intensive care unit. I would be lost without them. Thank God for community.

So amazing.

Francine L Shaw: I'm telling you.

Matt Regusci: I spent endless hours being by my husband's side in the emergency room and intensive care unit, hoping I would receive a miracle. It was hopeless, but I kept on praying the rosary. And I just wanted my husband back. I'm not Catholic anymore, but I still do the rosary. It is really comforting.

Like, growing up Catholic, if you do the rosary all the time, it is one of the best meditations there is. And I could see, like, my grandma, when my grandma was dying, she was dying of lung cancer. She was one who helped raise me. She started like disappearing mentally towards the end and she would freak out.

There was nothing there. I would start doing the rosary. My grandma would hum the rosary, like literally there's barely any brain cells left. She's dying. She's asphyxiating to death. I would start saying the rosary and she would hum the cadence with me and it put her back to sleep. The rosary really truly is a very powerful meditation tool and I'm glad that she had that and she still does because this poor woman is going to have a tough few years.

My heart was breaking but deep inside I knew it was hopeless and my husband was leaving me. The doctor took me aside and said, it's time to say goodbye. There was no hope for survival and the doctor said it was time to terminate my husband's life and to take him off of life support. I signed the DNA and I cried and crumbled with pain.

In my heart, I truly believe that my husband would still be with me if he wasn't poisoned by boar's head and getting listeria. Let's face it, everyone has some medical problems and is taking medications. People are living longer these days and are due to medication life expectancy is 90 and some live to be 100.

Boar's Head, Virginia plant should be held responsible for my husband's death. I never thought my husband would die eating a liverwurst sandwich. Boar's head should be held liable for my husband's death. My husband's immune system could not handle the high bacteria in boar's head liverwurst and passed away from listeria in a painful death on life support intensive care on July 18, 2024.

I don't know how boar's head could be sympathetic towards me knowingly. They had a filthy roach infested mold and water dripping in their meats. The boar's head plant. Not once or twice, but a dozens of times were visited by the health department and were cited for violations and they still remained open to distribute poisoned liverwurst to the public.

Was Boarhead ever concerned regarding their employees health working under these conditions? Absolutely not. My question to Boar's Head is, would you take poisoned meat home to your family and loved ones? I know the answer. I always bought Boar's Head, but no more. I am devastated, heartbroken, and I feel I will never be the same.

I miss my husband beyond words. Regarding the future, who knows what's in store for anyone. We are all in God's hands. My sister and I were sitting by my husband's side in intensive care. I left to go to the ladies room. As I walked back inside, my sister said, My husband just passed away at 1 59 p. m. I ran over to him and said, Please come back.

I love you. I didn't say goodbye. And the monitor machine went back on. My husband then passed at 2:03 p. m. and was pronounced dead for a second time. Even at the end, he was sending his love and I had my miracle to say goodbye. Amen.

Francine L Shaw: Real life.

Matt Regusci: We need more victims at conferences and stuff like that because this,

Francine L Shaw: yes, we do

Matt Regusci: teaches us why we do what we do.

I think on that note, we should just end this and say, God rest his soul. I hope this godly woman and her family and all the families that had passed or are sick beyond belief get some sort of condolence through this.

Francine L Shaw: Something. I don't know what else we could say about Boar's Head that we haven't already said or any of the other companies for that matter.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. Don't eat poop.

Francine L Shaw: Don't eat poop.