On this weeks menu we have Serratia marcescens and Listeria, best guess is that the Maple Leaf foods scare is a cover for the Listeria outbreaks...11 Dead so far an counting.

More listeriosis cases expected; Maple Leaf Foods expands recall

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/08/24/health-listeria.html?ref=rss



Serratia marcescens (shows in EVERYONE this week)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serratia_marcescens


from:
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/7/13/how_the_u_s_government_exposed


AMY GOODMAN: Because we do know about what happened in the Bay Area, right, with the release of toxins. Can you talk about that?

LEONARD COLE: Sure. This was perhaps the most dramatic and well-reported incident, which we learned about only decades after it was actually conducted. In 1950, another bacterium, and any doctors or microbiologists will recognize this immediately as not something that you should play around with, it was called serratia marcescens. These bacteria were released from the Bay of San Francisco, a boat was spraying trillions of these bacteria onshore. And this is very interesting, because in San Francisco in 1950, a major hospital, university hospital, Stanford University Hospital was located, and they had never recorded any infections from serratia marcescens. Unbeknown to the doctors or anybody in the hospital, the army released the bacteria. Three days later, a case of the serratia marcescens was discovered in the hospital. A dozen or so occurred in the subsequent months. One of the patients died of serratia infection.

AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean? What happens to the person?

LEONARD COLE: These bacteria colonized his heart valve. The bacteria can infect various organs of the body, particularly with weakened people. Now, a person who was in the hospital who had had surgery emerged, became infected, and he died. And what is fascinating is that when the public first learned about this test, mind you, the test occurred in 1950, there were news reports about the test for the first time in the year 1976 and ’77. The grandson of the—the grandson of the person who died, Edward Nevin, who died, the grandson is named Edward Nevin the third, was reading about this, as he was commuting from his home in Berkeley, California, to his law office in San Francisco.