Salmonella In Mexican Papayas Because Mexican Workers Don't Understand What "Germs" Are
07/02/2019
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In response to a story about salmonella in imported Mexican papayas (if you have Mexican papayas, throw them out) Instapundit jokes:

SO THIS MEANS THAT BY REACHING A TRADE DEAL WITH MEXICO, TRUMP IS KILLING PEOPLE! Mexican-grown papayas linked to salmonella outbreak in U.S. Remember, any story can be shoehorned into the narrative if you try hard enough.

Indeed.

My narrative, whenever we see diseases in produce, is to remind you that many Mexican farmworkers do not understand the Germ Theory of Disease. This is a problem not only for people eating produce from Mexico, but produce from California—in both cases picked by Mexican farmworkers who may be illiterate in English and Spanish, or in the case of Indians from Chiapas, may never have learned Spanish in the first place.

In 2006, I asked

How is that you yourself know about the Germ Theory of disease? Because you learned about it in health class in school, or your parents told you. Mexican immigrants didn't have those classes, or those parents. How would they know?

See my Invincible Ignorance And Ebola—Why Are We Letting In Immigrants Who Don’t Know What A Germ Is?

Here's the 2019 story.

Federal health officials issued a recall alert Friday for papayas grown in Mexico and sold in multiple states in the Northeast due to a salmonella outbreak.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the whole, fresh papayas have been linked to 62 illnesses, including 23 hospitalizations. No deaths have been associated with eating the fruit.

 ...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised importers, suppliers, retailers and restaurants to hold any papayas grown in Mexico. Consumers should throw out any of the fruit if it was grown in Mexico.

Salmonella infection can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In serious cases, the bacteria can cause arterial infections, endocarditis and arthritis.

Mexican-grown papayas linked to salmonella outbreak in U.S., by Danielle Haynes,UPI, June 28, 2019

This 2019 salmonella story is much like the 2008 salmonella story, see Jalapeno Peppers, Rather Than Tomatoes, Are The Cause Of The Salmonella, But They Do Come From Mexico.

And see

 

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