Ashley Solberg wasn’t worried about the risk to her pregnancy when she bought Boar’s Head sliced ham from a Florida supermarket in May. Her doctor had told her the risk was negligible, Ms. Solberg said, and she’d eaten deli meat without any issues in her last pregnancy. So she used it to make a poolside lunch for her parents and toddler.
It was only when she returned home to Coon Rapids, Minn., that she started to feel ill. When her fever persisted for a third day, she went to a hospital, where a blood test revealed she had been infected with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. A doctor told Ms. Solberg, who was 36 weeks pregnant, that she might need an emergency C-section, or worse.
“The doctor came in and said there’s a possibility that your baby won’t make it, and said over and over how serious a listeria infection is,” she said. “I was terrified.”
Ms. Solberg, 33, is one of 57 people across 18 states who have been hospitalized in an ongoing listeria outbreak tied to Boar’s Head deli meats. The bacteria thrive in cold temperatures, which is why listeria is more commonly found in processed meats, fruit and dairy products. Contaminated food can also deposit the bacteria on counters, deli-meat slicers and other places where food is processed.
Most people don’t get very sick from listeria. But for older adults, immunocompromised people and pregnant women, an infection can cause serious health issues or even death. All nine deaths linked to the outbreak have been of people older than 70, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ms. Solberg and others sickened in the outbreak described their shock at falling seriously ill after eating cold cuts or liverwurst they had enjoyed without issues for years. One patient had to pause her chemotherapy treatments for leukemia to battle the infection. Some became so ill they had to spend weeks receiving IV antibiotics, and are still trying to regain their strength.
Sue Fleming, an 89-year-old retired psychotherapist in Missouri, said she had not fully recovered from the listeria infection she developed in July after consuming Boar’s Head liverwurst. She is doing physical therapy several times each week to slowly regain her strength. “My body is very weak,” she said.
Some of those sickened in the outbreak, including Ms. Fleming and Ms. Solberg, have filed lawsuits against Boar’s Head over their illnesses. In 2022, federal inspectors uncovered dangerous conditions at the company’s processing facility in Jarratt, Va., including green mold, leaking pipes and meat residue on food-contact surfaces. The plant continued processing pork and beef products even as later inspections showed those problems persisted.
In July, Boar’s Head recalled more than seven million pounds of deli meat and temporarily stopped operations at its Jarratt factory. The company did not respond to requests for comment, but said in an Aug. 29 statement that it regretted “the impact this recall has had on affected families.”
The true scope of the Boar’s Head outbreak could be far greater than health officials have reported, experts said. Because listeria can grow so slowly, it can take anywhere from several hours to several months to make people sick. And health officials rarely hear about infections in healthy people, either because they do not get sick or they experience only mild, flu-like symptoms, such as diarrhea, vomiting and chills, that resolve on their own in a few days.
In older and immunocompromised people, however, the bacteria can proliferate quickly, sometimes spreading from the small intestine to other parts of the body or into the bloodstream.
“People that are immunocompromised, that are older, that don’t have a very robust immune system, the bacteria has a leg up, because it can get in there and grow and divide,” said Kirsten Hokeness, an immunologist and the director of the School of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Bryant University in Rhode Island.
If the bacteria reaches the brain, it can cause life-threatening inflammation. “That’s where the damaging and dangerous things can happen,” Dr. Hokeness said.
On July 7, an ambulance rushed 88-year-old Günter Morgenstein from his home in Newport News, Va., to a nearby hospital. He was dizzy, disoriented and suffering from extreme fatigue. Mr. Morgenstein, a Holocaust survivor who still worked as a part-time hairstylist, often ate Boar’s Head liverwurst, according to his wife, Margaret Morgenstein.
While doctors waited for lab results, they placed Mr. Morgenstein on an IV drip of broad-spectrum antibiotics and inserted a feeding tube.
By the time doctors diagnosed him with listeriosis several days later, Mr. Morgenstein was unable to speak. His heart rate fluctuated wildly over the first days of his hospitalization — from 74 to 158 beats per minute. A lumbar puncture confirmed he had developed meningitis, which happens when the fluid and membranes around the brain and spinal cord become infected and inflamed. The bacteria had reached his brain and caused swelling, which can interfere with speech, cognition and balance.
Five days later, he died.
“I sat there for 10 days in that hospital and watched his heart take its last beat, and watched him take his last breath,” Ms. Morgenstein said. “It was just horrible.”
That same week, in Missouri, Ms. Fleming woke up from an afternoon nap and told her husband that she didn’t feel well. Soon, her body started shaking with violent convulsions.
“I thought my bones were going to fly out of my body, and I couldn’t pull myself tight enough to stop them,” she said.
By that evening, Ms. Fleming was in an emergency room, suffering from chills so severe that heated blankets were of little help. Doctors treated her with broad-spectrum antibiotics until her test results came back positive for listeria, at which point they switched her to a more targeted antibiotic called ampicillin.
“Luckily we acted within four hours of the onset of symptoms and got Sue to the hospital,” said her husband, Pat Fleming. “If we had not acted quickly, she might have died.”
But her nine-day hospital stay was just the beginning of her recovery.
Ms. Fleming was transferred to a rehabilitation center, where for 11 days she worked with physical therapists to regain strength in her legs and arms. After returning home, she remained on antibiotics for another month. Her husband had to learn to administer the medication through an IV line.
Doctors also treated Ms. Solberg with antibiotics in the hospital, and monitored her baby with ultrasound scans. Listeria is one of a few pathogens that can cross the placenta, which means it can pose serious risks to pregnant women and their fetuses. Pregnant women are far more likely than the general population to get sick from a listeria infection. The C.D.C. estimates that there are about 1,600 cases of listeriosis each year. In 2019, about 13 percent of cases were in pregnant women, the agency said.
Those who fall ill are at higher risk of preterm labor, miscarriage or stillbirth. Pregnant women who only have mild symptoms don’t always seek treatment. This can allow the bacteria to spread and “overwhelm” a fetus, which can have devastating consequences, said Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth Health in New Hampshire. Nearly 25 percent of listeriosis cases in pregnant women have resulted in the loss of the fetus or the death of the newborn, according to the C.D.C.
Though serious complications are rare, the risk is why health care providers recommend that pregnant women avoid foods more likely to be contaminated with listeria.
Ms. Solberg was hospitalized for seven days before doctors sent her home with a portable IV to continue a 14-day course of antibiotics.
Shortly after the IV was removed, Ms. Solberg returned to the hospital, where she delivered a healthy baby girl.
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