The owner of Oasis Brands, Inc., a Florida cheese company, was sentenced to 15 months in prison on November 15, 2016. Christian Rivas was sent to prison for distributing contaminated cheese that was associated with a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak in 2014 that sickened five people in four states. U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. sentenced Mr. Rivas … Read more
Dairy products were the most common source of Listeria outbreaks that occurred between 1998 and 2012, according to a new federal study by the Food Safety Analytics Collaboration of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The study was conducted to … Read more
Listeria outbreaks are often linked to soft cheese, usually made by small facilities. The 2014 outbreak associated with Oasis Brands soft cheeses and the current outbreak linked to Queseria Bendita soft cheeses are two cases in point. There are several reasons for these outbreaks: small vendors may not have the experience or training to understand the … Read more
A Listeria outbreak linked to soft cheeses sold under the brand names Oasis, Lacteos Santa Martha and Hondu Crema has ended after sickening five people in four states, one of whom died, according to a final report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There was one illness reported in each of … Read more
Two Listeria outbreaks this year illustrate how badly the odds are stacked against Hispanic pregnant women when it comes to Listeria. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pregnant Hispanic women are 24 times more likely than the general population to get Listeria poisoning. A major factor in the increased risk is … Read more
Listeria in soft cheese has been the source of two deadly multistate food poisoning outbreaks so far this year. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a three-state outbreak linked to Oasis cheeses that killed one person and sickened two others. And, in March, an outbreak linked to Roos Cheese sickened eight people … Read more