3rd person dies in tainted milk case
By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff
An 87-year-old Norfolk County man has died from a bacterial infection linked to tainted milk from a mom-and-pop dairy, the third death related to the outbreak, state health authorities reported this afternoon.
The man, who fell ill in November, died Thursday while hospitalized. Officials at the Department of Public Health declined to identify him, citing patient confidentiality laws.
Two other elderly men died earlier from listeriosis, and all three cases of the bacterial disease have been associated with contaminated milk produced at Whittier Farms in Central Massachusetts.
State disease investigators also reported today that the total number of cases of listeriosis attributed to the milk has risen by one, to five. A 31-year-old Middlesex County woman was diagnosed with the disease in September while in the hospital to deliver a baby, said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, the state's director of communicable disease control. Investigators connected her to the milk after discovering that she had consumed 2 percent and whole milk made by Whittier.
The 31-year-old woman and her baby are both healthy, as is a 34-year-old woman whose illness was previously linked to the outbreak. That woman, though, suffered a miscarriage after exposure to the bacteria.
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I was at a horse show the weekend of 11/14/2007, Eastern States Exposition. My sudent & I stopped in Worcester for food had yogurt & frappes. On the way home, my student said she felt like she was comming down w/a cold/fever/chills etc.
I had the same symtoms the folling week and on 12/15/07 was admitted to Cape Cod Hospital w/ sever diahria/vomiting, fever/chills headache. etc. They told me I had "a bacterial infection in my digestive tract." He treated me w/Flagl (metronidzole) which is a antiparasitic. To make a long story short, my primary care doctor who I called after seeing the TV news Just ordered another antibiotic said blood tests would be Inconclusive $ expensive. I am getting better and my question is were any other people from that horse show sick? Lorrie Stetzko