At the Know Your H20 Platform, we are always looking out to cover topics that help to inform the public with information that may not initially get their attention.   A lot of the time, we our bombarded with headlines about waterborne contamination related to bacteria, metals, forever chemicals and issues related to natural gas drilling, radon, vaccines,  that we miss some very critical potential health problems and concerns.  The topic of this article is Listeria, Listeria Outbreaks, and foodborne contamination.

In 2025, Listeria Outbreaks have been linked to Supplement Shakes and Ready-to-Eat Meals or foods (meat), but in 2024 outbreaks were related to fruits, vegetables, queso fresco, cotija cheese, ice cream, and leafy greens.   For a complete listing of outbreaks, we strongly suggest you bookmark the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS) Dashboard and the BEAM Dashboard.

“The National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS) supports outbreak reporting by partners in state, local, and territorial public health agencies. Through NORS, CDC collects reports of all waterborne and foodborne disease outbreaks, certain fungal disease outbreaks, and all enteric disease outbreaks transmitted by contact with environmental sources, infected people or animals, or unknown modes of transmission. “ NORS collects data on the following types of outbreaks in the United States:

• Waterborne disease outbreaks – all outbreaks of respiratory, skin, enteric or other types of illness spread through water, including water that people drink, swim in, or use for other purposes.
• Foodborne disease outbreaks – all outbreaks spread through food.  The most common symptoms of food poisoning include diarrhea, stomach pain or cramps, nausea, vomiting, and fever. Signs of severe food poisoning include bloody diarrhea, diarrhea that lasts more than 3 days, fever over 102°F, vomiting so often that you cannot keep liquids down, and signs of dehydration.
• Animal contact disease outbreaks – all outbreaks of enteric illness spread to humans from contact with animals, such as a chicken or pet turtle, or their environments.
• Person-to-person transmitted disease outbreaks – all outbreaks of enteric illness spread directly from one person to another through direct contact, such as by handshake.
• Environmental contamination outbreaks – all outbreaks of enteric illness spread through contact with other environmental sources, such as dirty linens or surfaces that people touch in bathrooms, as well as outbreaks of blastomycosis, coccidioidomycosis, histoplasmosis, or sporotrichosis.
• Other enteric illness outbreaks – all outbreaks of enteric illness spread through other, unknown, or indeterminate means.”

Major pathogens reported via NORS include Campylobacter, Clostridium perfringens, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Giardia, Legionella, Norovirus, Salmonella, and Shigella.

“The BEAM (Bacteria, Enterics (also Bacteria), Ameba, and Mycotics (fungal)) Dashboard is an interactive tool to access and visualize data that track enteric bacterial, viral, and parasitic agents, and other foodborne, waterborne, and fungal diseases.  BEAM Dashboard also includes data from National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System for Enteric Bacteria (NARMS) .”

“Listeria is especially harmful to women who are pregnant, people aged 65 or older, or people with weakened immune systems. This is because Listeria is more likely to spread beyond their gut to other parts of their body, resulting in a severe condition known as invasive listeriosis.

For women who are pregnant, Listeria can cause pregnancy loss, premature birth, or a life-threatening infection in their newborn.

For people who are 65 years or older or who have a weakened immune system, Listeria often results in hospitalization and sometimes death.”

Some example outbreaks of Listeria in 2025

June 18, 2025 - Listeria Outbreak Linked to Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo Meals 

May 7, 2025 Listeria Outbreak Linked to Ready-to-Eat Foods *

Mar. 13, 2025 - Listeria Outbreak Linked to Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry Products

February 20, 2025 - Listeria Outbreak Linked to Supplement Shakes*

*Very vulnerable population – Senior citizens and individuals in nursing homes (Link to an article on point by a Legal Advocate)

Our Recommendations:

1.      Make sure to always use your store shopping card when making a purchase, it is very likely that the store will notify you of a recall.     For our family this is the primary way we have been notified in the past.

2.      If you have family members that become sick, you may want to review some of the past purchases and watch out for the common symptoms.   For pregnant women usually the symptoms are fever, muscle aches, and tiredness and most others it includes headaches, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, or seizures.

3.      For waterborne routes, we suggest you get your drinking water tested and consider maybe a point-of-use device or whole house water treatment system.  Yes, even for “City Water”.   We also suggest that you flush your water lines prior to consumption and you may want to consider pasteurizing your hot water lines and annually shock disinfecting or at least flushing the cold water lines.

4.      Keep humidifiers clean and get your indoor air quality check and/or use at least a monitoring system. You may want to consider the use of an indoor air filtration system.

5.      Bookmark and regularly check the CDC Alerts Page.

6.      Depending on our affiliations you may be able to join the CDC’s Health Alert Network (HAN) is CDC’s primary method of sharing cleared information about urgent public health incidents with public information officers; federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public health practitioners; clinicians; and public health laboratories. HAN message types include:

Health Alert: Conveys the highest level of importance about a public health incident.

Health Advisory: Provides important information about a public health incident.

Health Update: Provides updated information about a public health incident.

7.      Download a free copy of the Listeria Response Guide (pdf) and request a free copy of the Keystone Clean Water Teams educational booklet on drinking water titled “Our Drinking Water”.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, please contact the Know Your H20 Team and give up the information.

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