Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

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[00:00:00] Matt: The version of my husband, father, brother, friend, uncle, and boss we all knew, loved and depended on is gone. A shadow version of John remains in place, and because of the complexity of his medical needs, we don't know for how long it has been harrowing to watch him suffer for the better part of a year.

Now, he has said that he wished he died last July. What does one even say to that?

[00:00:33] 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 Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't eat poop.

Don't eat poop. Hello?

[00:00:59] Matt: Hello, [00:01:00] Francine.

[00:01:00] Francine: Hey Pat.

[00:01:02] Matt: How are you?

[00:01:03] Francine: I am just wonderful. How

[00:01:05] Matt: about you? Good. We just did a LinkedIn live.

[00:01:11] Francine: We did. I've been busy this month.

[00:01:14] Matt: God, you have been busy this month.

[00:01:16] Francine: I'm really busy. Busy.

[00:01:17] Matt: Yeah. That was fun though. I really like Brian. I.

[00:01:22] Francine: I do too.

[00:01:23] Matt: Yeah. So we'll have that interview later on our podcast.

Brian's gonna send us the interview audio on that, which will be different because it's him talking to us versus us talking to somebody else. So,

[00:01:35] Francine: yeah, nothing on being asked a question that you know nothing about.

[00:01:40] Matt: Yeah, it's been busy too. We're gonna have a new sponsor next month. Yeah, so if you haven't heard of Brian, he has LinkedIn live every Friday, eight o'clock Mountain, seven o'clock Pacific, 10 o'clock Eastern time in the morning.

It's [00:02:00] called Food Safety Chat live. It was fun.

[00:02:03] Francine: That was, it was in all fairness, I, the, uh, practice session because I wasn't here, but

[00:02:10] Matt: yeah, we weren't even sure first things got crossed. We thought F wasn't gonna be on there, so it was just him and I. Doing the beginning work of it and, but yeah, interesting conversation.

It has to do all with how regulation works in the United States for food. So that will be a fun one that we post up here. But today we are going to talk about listeria. Yes, it's always fun. And the reason why is because Bill Marler has different publications. One is obviously like food safety news, which he runs.

[00:02:44] Francine: Stop. So now we've gone from referring to Mr. Marler to Bill Marler, to just Marler?

[00:02:52] Matt: Yeah. Or Bill, whatever. We literally were talking to him like 10 minutes ago to make sure we have this right [00:03:00] before we go on air. And I just texted him and he was like, I'll just call you. I want to, I'll talk to you. So, yeah.

[00:03:08] Francine: Conversations with him are so fun.

[00:03:10] Matt: Conversations with him are hilarious. Oh my gosh. The guy, like, I assume he must have some sort of filter, like when he's at court and stuff like that, but when he is talking to us, there's no filter.

[00:03:22] Francine: I would love to sit in on one of his cases. Oh man. A bucket list of mine.

I would just. So much on a bucket list.

[00:03:33] Matt: I bet it's actually boring. Like law stuff is very different. But

[00:03:39] Francine: no, I don't think it would be boring at all.

[00:03:41] Matt: My aunt who helped raise me, wanted me to be an attorney so bad. She so wanted me to be an attorney. She said I would be great at it and I was like, yeah, sure, like a courtroom attorney.

I probably really good like on my feet, but all the paperwork and stuff that goes with reading all the different cases, I love to read. [00:04:00] But that stuff would put me to sleep so fast.

[00:04:03] Francine: The part that I don't think you or I, either one would be great at is like the paperwork aspect of it. Yeah.

[00:04:12] Matt: Terrible. I'd be terrible at that.

[00:04:14] Francine: We would definitely need administrative assistance to do our paperwork.

[00:04:18] Matt: Which is funny 'cause you and I both write all the time like I write, that's different. Yeah. I write like a lot of technical stuff, technical papers. But.

[00:04:28] Francine: That's different than filling out. It's different than

[00:04:31] Matt: a briefing. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:34] Francine: I read a lot too.

We both read a lot and we both write. Right. A lot that is different than filing technical paperwork and our note taking situation is not what

[00:04:47] Matt: note taking situation.

[00:04:48] Francine: I'll say the practicing

[00:04:51] Matt: what? Practicing.

[00:04:53] Francine: That's why when somebody says. Sometimes when we interview people, they want to, are we gonna have a [00:05:00] trial run or,

[00:05:03] Matt: yeah, no, no.

[00:05:05] Francine: The link five minutes before.

[00:05:07] Matt: Yeah. We'll talk about what we wanna talk about, like right beforehand. Texas

[00:05:10] Francine: don't want that element of being the, of being rehearsed on our, because that's just not how our podcast works.

[00:05:16] Matt: Yeah.

[00:05:18] Francine: Yeah.

[00:05:20] Matt: So Mr. Bill Marler. Francine, is that better?

[00:05:25] Francine: Yeah, I just, it just sounded funny.

It just came off.

[00:05:27] Matt: Attorney at law has a couple different publications. He runs Food Safety News, but he also has his own blog, which I think I enjoy reading his blog because that's where you get to see much more of the unfiltered Bill that you and I know. He just writes so much stuff on this thing. It, it's crazy funny.

He just goes off on the government, he goes off on people. He goes off on everybody on this thing. But last night he posted, [00:06:00] for those of you, this is gonna be a week ago, he posted on LinkedIn, his newest post on Marler blog. Check that out. Marler blog about a tragic listeria illness and the search for the cause.

So during the Boars Head incident, I'll just give you some framework here. During the Boars Head incident, there was another listeria outbreak that was happening. A couple victims of this, and it was in, they assume it was potatoes for Mexico that has had this strain happening. People been getting sick from this exact same genetic strain on whole genome sequencing.

They're able to find the exact genetic strain. People have gotten sick from this for a while now, so dozens of people over the years. So this particular strain has gotten people sick since 2019. So far two people sick [00:07:00] this year, but this particular guy, his case happened last year and. What I loved about this blog and why we're talking about this one, this particular blog that Bill wrote, and that's why we were talking to him this morning, was making sure, is it really his wife that is talking about this?

And there's a lot of what either he talked to her about or she wrote to him about how this victim, her husband is doing. And so we wanted to go into details on this because. A lot of times we, in the food safety world, we're doing with SOPs, logs testing, et cetera, et cetera, and sometimes we lose sight on why we're doing this.

And hearing about what listeria can do to the human body is fascinating and scary. Francine and I talk about this all time, about how bad Listeria is getting lister. Rosas [00:08:00] is probably one of the worst things you can get. Live from like, it's crazy.

[00:08:09] Francine: I don't want to live like that. I would prefer to die.

[00:08:12] Matt: Yeah,

[00:08:13] Francine: that too.

[00:08:15] Matt: Me

[00:08:15] Francine: too.

[00:08:16] Matt: Me too.

[00:08:16] Francine: I know I would prefer to die. Yeah. Which is sad.

[00:08:24] Matt: It

[00:08:24] Francine: is so sad.

[00:08:26] Matt: It's so sad and so I'm gonna go back and forth between reading this and in Francine and I commenting because I think it's really important for us to hear what happens to the human body when someone gets lister roses and lives from this, and how it affects them as a human being and.

I would say more importantly, how it affects their family and friends and their business and everything else, and just try to put yourself into that situation of not so much being the victim of this, but [00:09:00] how it would affect the people around you as well. Because I think that's almost more of an impact.

[00:09:06] Francine: There are multiple victims though. There's the victim.

[00:09:09] Matt: Yeah. That

[00:09:10] Francine: has the actual ramifications of the illness. And that there are the victims which suffer from the The family. Yeah. Suffering from this person's lifelong

[00:09:26] Matt: illness. The ramifications.

[00:09:27] Francine: Okay. The lifelong ramifications of the illness. Yes. They're also victims.

It accepts absolutely on. So is it, I couldn't agree with you. More impact, is it? I don't know. But they're also victims of this illness.

[00:09:42] Matt: Yes. So I'm gonna jump into some of the details of this and then Francine, I know it's hard for you to do this, but interrupt me if I'm.

[00:09:55] Francine: So I try not to use the word shut up.

That's the second time this [00:10:00] month. I have said that when I said that we spoke at a conference earlier this month and Matt said something rude, which I know is hard to believe to me at this conference. I turned around. He said, shut up. And the people in the room just looked at us and I'm like, if you don't listen to our podcast, you totally don't understand our relationship.

And I embarrassed myself. I'd breathe and I felt, I just

[00:10:27] Matt: laughed.

[00:10:28] Francine: I felt really bad, but I know he wasn't offended. You're probably the only person I ever tell to shut.

[00:10:36] Matt: And you're really good at it too. You've had a lot of practice. Okay, so. We'll jump into it. So on July 16th, 2024, so last year, John Rahar, I assume this, John Rahar, you and I are terrible with names, was admitted to the hospital with a headache, facial drooping, dizziness, and an abnormal MRI.[00:11:00]

His family feared that he was having an aneurysm. A week later on July 22nd, 2024, John was intubated and sedated in the ICU where he remained for five weeks fighting for his life against bacterial meningitis caused by listeria. So he listeria, he got ended up getting bacterial meningitis. Which sucks.

You guys can look up meningitis if you don't know like the effects. I mean, everybody's heard of meningitis. So when John was first admitted to the ICU, he had been hospitalized for a week with symptoms. It took another three days of testing to determine that mysteria was the cause for his illness. John was on a ventilator and multiple IV drips to keep him alive in the ICU.

He was comatose and unresponsive for at least a week. At one point, he was so swollen with fluids and meds, he could not even close his [00:12:00] eyes insane. Approximately five weeks later in the ICU, John was transferred to a rehab hospital for a long-term acute care. He was minimally responsive to his family for the first several months.

In the long-term acute care, he remained unable to move, speak, swallow, or see without double vision. He developed pressure wounds that required serious care, including a specialized bed. So those of you that don't know, like in when you're comatose or this happens a lot in elderly care, you get wounds from just lying in the same position or sitting in the same position for days on end.

It could be hours on end actually, when you don't move. Those sores can get infected and you can literally die from gangrene. From bedsores. Another word for it is bedsores, which is, oh my gosh. He dev developed the pressure rooms. He remained on the IV antibiotic drip for [00:13:00] 12 weeks. Literally, he had antibiotics intravenously put into him for 12 weeks straight until blood tested, determined that the bacteria had finally been killed.

However, the massive effects of the infection included multiple abscesses in his brainstem and cerebellum, and his brain was left, swollen and inflamed. Oh my God. John remained on the ventilator until the end of November, 2024. That's what, five months? Four months. Five months. He was only able to sit in a wheelchair, propped up with pillows for 30 minutes at a time.

John started to receive pt, ot, and speech therapy. So PT is physical therapy, OT is occupational therapy and speech therapy. So physical therapy is like big muscle group. Moving walking. OT is like fine motor skills, so picking [00:14:00] things up, writing with a pen, those type of things that we just think are normal.

This poor guy had to relearn everything. Again, I. During this time, John encountered multiple infections, including UTI, urinary tract infection, bronchitis, and pink eye. John spent eight months in the rehab hospital and continues to improve very slowly to regain some strength, but the damage is apparent and his wife details.

So this is where we talk, what his wife says, right? But before that. Holy cow.

[00:14:32] Francine: Right? So I wanna talk about meningitis a little bit. There's two different types of meningitis. There's bacterial and there's viral. And sometimes I don't know that people realize that bacterial is the more severe of the two.

[00:14:48] Matt: Oh, I didn't realize that.

God. Can you imagine being this guy like. When we hear what his wife has to say about him, I just kept putting myself like, this could totally happen to me and that would be [00:15:00] detrimental to my family. Absolutely detrimental. Here's what his wife detailed. He made gains in communication, but it became apparent that his cognitive perception and personality were affected by the damage of the listeria infection.

It is devastating to see your loved one suffer so much and devastating on a whole different level to try to help and have them hallucinating that you were someone else and there to harm them. Oh man. To see my husband, my partner in life have every part of his body and mind affected is something I will never unsee or unfeel.

Ugh. In March, 2025, John was transferred to a skilled nursing, but it quickly became apparent, so this is just a few months ago. He was transferred to skilled nursing, but it quickly became apparent that this was not the proper level of care for him. In three weeks of the facility, EMS was called for John [00:16:00] three times, twice he had pulled out his own trach tube because it was becoming clogged with secretions that he, and he could not breathe.

Once because he had fallen and none of the nurses could lift him. Oh, man. Can you imagine pulling your own trach tube out because you can't breathe. You're literally suffocating, so you're pulling this tube out of your throat. Ugh. John's mental health deteriorated as well with him saying that he felt neglected and like he was left there to die.

Yeah, that's exactly how someone like this would feel. Due to lack of nursing care. John ended up in the ICU with pneumonia where he stayed for 10 days and once again nearly died. So this guy has just been back and forth in the ICU over the last year. He was discharged back to rehab hospital to start a cycle all over again of long-term assisted care, rehab, and then insurance pushing him out the door to skilled nursing.[00:17:00]

Yeah, so. Because this is so expensive for the insurance company. They're like, yeah, let's just have some nurses take care of him, because that's cheaper than long-term assisted care, which is absolutely accurate and terrible at the same time. So these poor people are battling with insurance while they're dealing with this.

[00:17:22] Francine: That's just a whole different subject, but.

[00:17:26] Matt: Man, we deal with this all the time with all of our kids, with all of our medically fragile kiddos. Insurance is crazy. My wife is like a part-time job is with insurance companies and doctors and all this crap. Alright, so his wife writes, I worry and research constantly about where John could be placed and the level of care I can get for him.

He requires assistance to walk, bathe, dress, or even take care of himself. Yeah, take care of himself is a nice way of saying use the restroom. By the way, just in case [00:18:00] anybody was wondering, she's being way more politically correct than you and I are thing is don't eat poop. Right? Which is probably why he got pink eye.

'cause he's sitting in his own mess half the time. He is on a feeding tube because he cannot swallow without aspirating. He has a tracheostomy that may be permanent. As well as a feeding tube. He can speak but it's difficult to understand initially as half of his face still remains paralyzed. He cannot write due to loss of fine motor skills and he cannot read without difficulty due to double vision.

He was recently diagnosed with cerebellar cognitive acute dys syndrome for which there is not a treatment nor a cure. John's long-term memory remains intact, but his short-term memory, emotional regulation, and impulse control are all affected, which is everything you need to be married to a human being.[00:19:00]

Okay? Just think about your husband and Fred Seed, and I'll think about my wife. Could you imagine if our short-term memory, emotional regulation, and impulse control we're all affected? People think we're already, can't control this.

[00:19:17] Francine: One of those may go haywire every now and then, but if they all go at the same time, I just, it is such a sad situation. It's such a sad situation. I can't begin to imagine that poor woman and they have a child, they a 15 child,

[00:19:37] Matt: which will get to that too. Yeah. They have a 15-year-old son, which is really hard because now the 15-year-old son is basically, I.

Has a shell of a father.

[00:19:48] Francine: Well, and we'll get to this too, but he was the primary breadwinner of this family. And from what we're reading, we don't know, but significantly so. [00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Matt: Yeah. So that's the next paragraph. John has never made it home since admitting to hospital care last July. So a whole year he has not been home.

He may never make it home. As his medical needs, both physically and mentally remain complex again, another way, very nice way. Complex is a very nice way of basically a crap hole. Like poor guy John is a beloved, successful, vibrant, healthy, intelligent, and opinionated man who headed up a family and a business.

So the wife wrote, John is, which I found fascinating. I read this multiple times just because I wanted to get the psychological aspect of being married to someone that has this problem. She's remembering him as he was not as he is now, which is so fascinating. And [00:21:00] oh, wait a minute. Wait.

[00:21:00] Francine: It says that his long-term memory is still intact.

[00:21:04] Matt: Yes, that is true. That is true. So

[00:21:08] Francine: short term, not long term is, so, I wonder if he does have any of that skillset

[00:21:19] Matt: that he's still showing love and

[00:21:21] Francine: he's still able to, right. Yeah. Still, and from her, this poor woman who we don't, I don't think it says in there what her, what she did prior to this. But whatever that was, she now has, we're gonna assume this company's still operating.

She now has that responsibility. Yeah. She has taken care of her husband responsibility. She's gotta be dealing with all of this emotional overload that has fallen on her son and trying to maintain some kind of normalcy for him in addition to her own emotional aspects and physical for everything that has, [00:22:00] she's dealing with, I.

[00:22:04] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And it's so great that we get to see, we get to get this from her own words because she writes next. John is the chief creative officer, CEO, and founding member of our business. So this is family business. Coming to terms with the changes of our business structure and making sure we are still providing the same level of thinking and execution has been nearly a full-time job beyond managing John's care.

So she's running the business and his care and being an only mom, which she says next in a bit, but she's thankfully, John's thoughtful leadership prior to the sudden disappearance gave us an effective blueprint to keep going and maintaining our level of performance. But to say that this time has been stressful is frankly an understatement of the year yet.

No kidding. I only slept because I'm too mentally exhausted to stay awake at certain [00:23:00] points. Essentially, our entire life has been dominated and completely turned upside down by John's illness since he was admitted. I have struggled to be a parent to our 15-year-old son while my hours literally and mentally are dominated by managing John's care.

I worry for my son's mental health while trying to maintain my own and be engaged and involved as a mom. The version of the husband, father, brother, friend, uncle, and boss we all knew, loved and depended on is gone. A shadow version of John remains in place, and because of the complexity of his medical needs, we do not know for how long it has been harrowing to watch him suffer for the better parts of a year.

Now, he has said he wished that he had died last July. What does one even say to that? At the time, I was so grateful that John [00:24:00] lived, but seeing how miserable he is now, I don't feel grateful at all. I feel that my best friend and husband John did die then, and I am now a widow to a living person, and that is truly an awful place to exist in for both of us.

Wow.

[00:24:21] Francine: Somebody to be that honest.

[00:24:24] Matt: Yes.

[00:24:25] Francine: To admit that is, that almost makes me wanna cry.

[00:24:29] Matt: It did. It made, I was like trying to read that without crying. Oh

[00:24:32] Francine: yeah. And I'm not a crier. Like while people might think that the honesty that it takes to admit that is pretty powerful.

[00:24:46] Matt: Yeah. It really is helpful to understand what it's doing to her because I don't think badly of her for saying that out loud at all.

'cause it's what everybody would think in [00:25:00] that situation. I am proud that she's actually able, proud, like I'm a proud father or whatever friend or something of this woman. I don't know. But her writing that or telling that to Bill is just really powerful.

[00:25:14] Francine: Well, the courage that it takes for somebody to say something that like that in a society that is so quick to condemn yes people for feeling that real human emotion, like how could she not feel that way?

This man has no quality of life.

[00:25:31] Matt: No, no. Yeah. And her poor son at 15 years old, like I am nine. Forever boys, two foster boys, so 11 boys, nine of whom are going through or have gone through puberty, they're a mess. I remember when I was going through puberty, I was a mess. And to have this be one more [00:26:00] thing that poor boy has to have on his shoulder.

'cause at that time he was probably 14, now he's 15 and he's having to see his father. In a way that he's never seen his father as it sounds like this guy was a leader. He was leader of the household. He was leader of the business. He was. He was and and now he's being fully taken care of.

[00:26:25] Francine: And I wanna, this little boy, and I don't wanna say a little boy, but he really is and i's a teenager.

He is in between as essentially lost his dad and his mom

[00:26:32] Matt: for

[00:26:33] Francine: the

[00:26:33] Matt: last, oh God. You're absolutely right. I didn't think about, but yeah. Yeah, because his mom is,

[00:26:41] Francine: mom's kind of checked out, not intentionally, but, and she says that, and his dad is from Yeah. Purposes gone.

[00:26:55] Matt: Yeah. 'cause his mom is trying to run the family and deal with all of his [00:27:00] medical stuff and all that.

And so she's gotta be completely checked out. Not completely checked out, but she says 15-year-old probably thinks she's completely checked out.

[00:27:10] Francine: That she's struggling.

[00:27:13] Matt: Yeah, struggling is like the understatement of the year. Oh my gosh.

[00:27:20] Francine: And there are people that are going through far less that struggle.

[00:27:24] Matt: I'm gonna read that statement again just because it's so sad and powerful at the same time. The version of my husband, father, brother, friend, uncle, and boss we all knew, loved and depended on is gone. A shadow version of John remains in place, and because of the complexity of his medical needs, we don't know for how long it has been harrowing to watch him suffer for the better part of a year.

Now, he has said that he wished he died last July. What does one even say to that? [00:28:00] At the time, I was grateful that John lived, but seeing how miserable he is now, I don't feel grateful at all. I feel that my best friend and husband John did die then, and I am a widow to a living person, and that is truly an awful place to exist for both of us.

What does she say to him? Of course, she's, I assume she's saying to him, no, we're all so grateful that you're living, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In her head. She's thinking this. What does she say to her son? All of these things that are just going through.

[00:28:39] Francine: So then meantime, we have this company.

[00:28:42] Matt: Yes.

So nearly one year later we are searching for the conclusive link between John's devastating listeria illness and all the other links likely to Mexican potatoes. I'm having to fill in stuff. I think she wrote this statement to Bill. Question, [00:29:00] where is our FDA and CDC and the state of Texas in this investigation?

Good question. Full genome sequencing, WGS, which determines the full nucleotide sequence of a bacteria. Gene makeup is now the gold standard for laboratory surveillance and investigation of outbreaks of foodborne infectious infections. I think now we're going into what? Bill Marler wrote, but so then he writes a lot about where he thinks this came from or where they know it's comes from potatoes that were from Mexico.

So these sequencings showed up in 23 different differences between them with the average of just six sequences. A difference that is often seen in listeria outbreaks. 97 sequences were from human clinical isolates. The US submitted by PulseNet, USA and 33 were from potatoes, and one was from an apple [00:30:00] submitted by the Mexican service for national health of food and safety and quality, food quality with food origins listed as USCA distribution of sequence submitted by year is seeing the table below.

And so he puts like a whole table of all the different where they found these unique. Genetic markers of listeria from 2016 to 2025. So it's still ongoing, still investigation. So it's not like she has somebody to sue for medical needs. So this poor family is living in limbo, trying to pay these bills with, there's nobody to sue.

I feel for her. I feel for the boy, and I feel for John. So again, if you guys wanna know why we do what we do, it's so this doesn't happen. [00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Francine: Yeah. And so many times the human element is just overlooked and not just, it's just not talked about. Right. Our people

[00:31:09] Matt: connected all of this. Right. And Darren Detweiler, he tells a story all the time.

And I think because he tells the story all the time, people have become immune to his story. And so hearing other people's stories that go through this stop does a good job of that too.

[00:31:29] Francine: I wish that there were more people like Darren that were willing to get out there and tell their stories and make it real, so to speak.

'cause Darren does a very good job of making his story real and relatable. What it has taken for him to do that. I can't imagine. I just, I can't imagine the personal element of that. I wish, and I understand why there aren't, yeah, I understand why there aren't, but I wish that there were [00:32:00] more people that could do that because it's so impactful and it makes such a difference.

[00:32:09] Matt: Yeah. It's hard because a lot of families, if this happens to their kid, they don't wanna relive it every single day. Yeah. They don't wanna go out and advocate. They just wanna, most of the time they want forget. They wanna move on. They not forget. They'll never forget, but they want to try to figure out how to move on.

I understand what you're saying and telling the story over and over again doesn't allow them to happen. That's why I think Darren Detweiler is very unique. Darren Detweiler, by the way, is very unique in a lot of different ways. Yeah. But. Particularly about this reliving his story day in and day out just brings, it's just like pulling, it's pulling the stitches off of a wound every single time.

People don't, generally, people don't wanna do that.

[00:32:53] Francine: And I, again, that's what makes I think this podcast [00:33:00] so unique is while we discuss food safety, it's. This element of food safety that people often don't get to hear about.

[00:33:09] Matt: Yeah, and we talk about often, like Listeriosis getting dying from listeria is probably one of the worst ways.

This explains what we mean by that. This is terrible. Poor guys. It's perpetual pain. Ugh. Alright, well I guess on that note, don't eat poop. Donate poop.