My Listeria Summer, courtesy of Amrita Health Foods - NaBloPoMo Day 11

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Apple, Cinnamon and Listeria Bar
from Amrita
Erin suggested I actually accomplish something useful with this NaBloPoMo timesuck. She pointed out that I could write a blog post documenting my queasy summer as a public service announcement:

For like two solid months, I had this flu that wouldn't quit. It was a real bitch of a flu featuring electrifyingly terrible headaches, dizziness, nausea, and super stiff muscles.

The worst part was, just when I'd start to shake it, there'd be a relapse. Over and over again.  Finally I went to the doctor. He said I did not have the flu. He said it looked to him like a food-borne illness. He scribbled me a prescription for antibiotics.

Maybe a week later, I get this email from Amazon:

Greetings from Amazon.com.
We have learned of a potential safety issue that may impact product(s) you purchased through Amazon.com:
HIGH PROTEIN Variety Pack - Pack of 12 bars by Amrita




I click through on the link:

Amrita Health Foods Voluntarily Recalls Protein Bars For Possible Health Risk

Amrita Health Foods is recalling … Amrita Bars because they have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections ... Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

No confirmed illnesses have been reported to public health authorities to date.



Seriously? I'd been eating these damn infected bars all summer, which is why I endlessly felt like shit. I kept re-poisoning myself every single time I got the munchies for a convenient protein snack.

Things about this whole listeria episode that really rubbed my bacteria-soaked brain cells the wrong way

  1. The email advisory came from Amazon (god bless 'em), not Amrita. And it came five days after Amrita notified the FDA of the problem. In that five days, I ate at least one Amrita bar, needlessly endangering my health.

    If I had not purchased these bars from Amazon, I might still be sick as a dog. But it would merely be a twelve-pack of "only" short-term side effects, clearly nothing much to worry about except if you're some kind of whiner who thinks high fevers, severe headaches, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea are a bit of a concern.

    (Fifty big points for Amazon in this whole transaction.)

  2. I get emails all the blessed time from Amazon vendors desperately begging me to rate and review their products or offering tips or trying to get me to sign up for some mailing list or another.

    Random little purveyors of essential oils, shoe inserts and super balls can manage to figure out how to use their Amazon dashboard to communicate with their customers but Amrita doesn't bother when their products are contaminated with Listeria?

  3. The last line in the FDA notice -- "No confirmed illnesses have been reported" --  really got me. So I set about to file a report. First, I called the Amrita phone number listed on the notice. No answer after multiple attempts.

  4. So then I went on the Amrita website and filled out their "contact us" form, explaining that I had a 'confirmed illness' complete with a doctor's note and everything.

    No reply. Seriously. No. Reply.

    None.

    This Amrita company didn't even bother to send an email with a so-super-sorry grovel and a coupon or some kind of pluck-your-heartstrings attempt to get me to not write blog posts like this one.

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