--- title: "The Last Month in Food Poisoning: Supplements, Kofta, and Cheese — and the Quiet Erosion of Transparency" date: 2026-06-07T08:53:00-07:00 author: Bill Marler canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/the-last-month-in-food-poisoning-supplements-kofta-and-cheese-and-the-quiet-erosion-of-transparency" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Firm News](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/firm-news) / # The Last Month in Food Poisoning: Supplements, Kofta, and Cheese — and the Quiet Erosion of Transparency Every few weeks I take stock of what is actually landing on the desks of the families I represent, and the last month has been a reminder that the threats keep moving. They move from the obvious — undercooked ground beef — to the places most people never think to look, like the "green superfood" capsules in the medicine cabinet and the formula tin on the changing table. Here is my take on the outbreaks that mattered most over the past month, and what they tell us about where food safety enforcement is heading. **Moringa "superfood" supplements — the Salmonella outbreak that won't stay closed** This is the big one, and it is the one almost nobody saw coming, because it isn't a food in the way people think about food. It's a supplement. The FDA and CDC closed an investigation into Salmonella Typhimurium and Salmonella Newport tied to moringa leaf powder back in March, at 97 sick across 32 states. Then the illnesses kept coming. The agencies reopened the investigation, and as of late May the count stood at 119 people infected across 36 states, with 32 hospitalizations. Illness onset dates stretch all the way back to August 2025 and run through late April 2026 — which tells you this contamination has been circulating, undetected by most consumers, for the better part of a year. The recalls cascaded: Live it Up Super Greens (Superfoods, Inc.), Total Nutrition/TNVitamins, Why Not Natural, and others, because the same imported moringa leaf powder was used as an ingredient across multiple "green superfood" brands. And then, just a day before reopening that probe, the agencies announced a second moringa outbreak — Salmonella Typhimurium tied to Mogo-brand Pure Moringa Oleifera capsules, 18 sick across 14 states with 7 hospitalized. Put the two together and you have roughly 137 confirmed Salmonella infections traced to moringa products, and the CDC has been blunt that the real number is far higher because most people with Salmonella never get tested. Here is my take. People buy these capsules believing "natural" means "safe." It does not. A botanical powder imported as a bulk ingredient and dropped into a dozen different brands is a contamination multiplier — one bad lot, many labels, and a consumer who has no idea the green pill they take for "wellness" shares a supply chain with the capsule that put their neighbor in the hospital. Dietary supplements live in a regulatory gray zone where pre-market safety testing is thin to nonexistent. I have said for thirty years that the pathogen does not care what aisle the product sits in, and this outbreak proves it again. Our firm is representing people sickened by moringa supplements, and the through-line in every one of those cases is the same: a trusting consumer and an opaque supply chain. **Idaho raw milk — 60 sick, and not one of them had to be** If the moringa outbreak is about a danger people don't think to look for, this one is about a danger people have been warned about for a century and choose anyway. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is investigating two outbreaks tied to raw milk from two separate milking operations — one in northern Idaho, one in southern Idaho. Since May 19, nearly 60 people have been sickened, at least 45 of them confirmed with campylobacteriosis, and eight have been hospitalized. As of the state's announcement no dairies had been named and no recall was in place, because the precise batches hadn't yet been pinned down. Six of Idaho's seven regional public health districts are working the investigation. That is not a small event. That is a public health district map lighting up across an entire state. My take, and anyone who knows my work knows it's coming this is the most preventable outbreak on this entire list, because the prevention was invented in 1864. Pasteurization — heating milk to 161°F for fifteen seconds — kills Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria. That's it. That's the whole technology. People who drink raw milk are, by one University of Delaware analysis, roughly 840 times more likely to get sick and 45 times more likely to be hospitalized than people who drink pasteurized dairy. Those are not close numbers. That is not a "personal choice" with a rounding-error downside. And Campylobacter is not just a bad week on the bathroom floor. It is the most common bacterial trigger of Guillain-Barré syndrome — an autoimmune assault on the nervous system that can leave an otherwise healthy person paralyzed and on a ventilator. I have represented families whose "wholesome, natural, local" glass of raw milk turned into a hospital stay, a feeding tube, or worse, and the victims are so often children whose parents made the choice for them. I have spent years documenting this on RealRawMilkFacts.com for exactly this reason: the marketing says farm-fresh and immune-boosting; the science says 840 times the risk. Sixty Idahoans just learned which one is true. **The Kebab Shop / Olympia Food Industries — E. coli O157:H7 in beef kofta** This one hits close to the work we do every day, and it hits children hardest. California public health officials, working with FSIS, identified an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 tied to beef kofta — seasoned ground beef kebabs — served at The Kebab Shop locations. As of late May, nine California residents were confirmed sick. Six of them are children. Five have been hospitalized, and two have developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, the kind of kidney failure that can change a child's life permanently. On June 1, FSIS confirmed through whole genome sequencing that beef kofta samples produced by Olympia Food Industries in Franklin Park, Illinois, matched the outbreak strain. My take: this is the Jack in the Box lesson, played again in 2026. Ground beef is the original adulterant problem — the reason E. coli O157:H7 was declared an adulterant by USDA in 1994 in the first place. Grinding takes whatever is on the surface of the meat and distributes it throughout, so an undercooked kofta is a delivery vehicle straight to a child's kidneys. The restaurant did the right thing by pulling the product, but WGS does not lie: the strain in the meat matched the strain in the kids. Two children with HUS is not a statistic. It is two families now learning words like "dialysis" and "plasma exchange." Our firm is involved in this matter, and I'll have more to say as it develops. **Requesón soft cheese — a multi-year Listeria outbreak surfaces** In June, FDA and CDC went public with a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak tied to requesón, a fresh Mexican-style cheese similar to ricotta. Eight people across three states, with patient samples collected on dates ranging from 2023 all the way to May 2026. The investigation broke open after a Suffolk County, New York family fell ill from cheese bought at a local retailer. My take: Listeria is the slow, patient killer of the foodborne world. A three-year span between the earliest and latest cases is the signature of a persistent environmental contamination — Listeria that has made a home in a production environment and refuses to leave. Soft, fresh, often unpasteurized cheeses are a recurring danger, and the people most at risk are pregnant women and their unborn children. For a pregnant woman, listeriosis can mean miscarriage, stillbirth, or a newborn fighting for its life. When I see "requesón" and "Listeria" in the same sentence, I think about the queso fresco and cotija outbreaks we've tracked for years. The lesson never seems to take. **Headcheese — Listeria at Crawford Sausage Co. (Daisy Brand)** Quieter, but worth flagging: FSIS confirmed in mid-May that headcheese produced by Crawford Sausage Co. in Illinois — sold as Daisy Brand Meat Products headcheese and sliced in retail delis — tested positive for the outbreak strain of Listeria monocytogenes. A ready-to-eat deli product contaminated with Listeria is exactly the Boar's Head scenario in miniature, and we all remember how that one ended. Ready-to-eat means no cook step stands between the contamination and the consumer. **The story that should be getting more attention: ByHeart and the disappearing supplier name** The infant botulism outbreak tied to ByHeart powdered formula was declared over back in February — 48 infants sickened across 17 states, every single one hospitalized. But this past month brought two developments that deserve far more outrage than they're getting. First, new data presented by CDC researchers showed that many of these babies needed continued physical therapy and medical support \*after\* they went home. "Recovered" is not the same as "well." These families are still in it. Second — and this is what should make every parent furious — when FDA released its Executive Summary on the outbreak, the agency redacted the name of the company that supplied ByHeart with the powdered milk where Clostridium botulinum was found. FDA and ByHeart both confirmed the contaminant was in a powdered milk ingredient, yet the public is not allowed to know which supplier put it there. My take: I have spent the last several months pressing exactly this point. Hiding a supplier's name behind a redaction box protects the company, not the baby. Transparency is not a courtesy the government extends when it is convenient — it is the entire mechanism by which the next outbreak gets prevented. You cannot fix a supply chain you are not allowed to see. **The through-line** Step back and these aren't five separate stories. They're one story told five ways: contamination is moving into products consumers don't scrutinize, supply chains are opaque, and the agencies meant to police all of it are doing so with thinner budgets and fewer people than at any point in my career. Reopened investigations, multi-year Listeria clusters that surface only by accident, and redacted supplier names are not signs of a system working. They are signs of a system stretched past its limits. If you cook ground beef, take it to 160°F and check it with a thermometer — color is a liar. If you're pregnant, stay away from soft, fresh, unpasteurized cheeses. If you're tempted by raw milk, understand that you are trading a century of proven protection for a marketing slogan, and that the people who pay for that trade are most often children. And if you take supplements, understand that "natural" and "safe" are not synonyms, and that the FDA's authority over what's in that capsule is far weaker than you'd assume. I'll keep watching. I always do. ### Lawsuit updates about foodborne illnesses [Reactive Arthritis Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=reactive-arthritis&year=all) [E. coli Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=e-coli&year=all) [Guillain-Barre Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=guillain-barre-syndrome&year=all) [Salmonella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=salmonella&year=all) [Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hemolytic-uremic-syndrome&year=all) [Listeria Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=listeria&year=all) [Irritable Bowel Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=irritable-bowel-syndrome&year=all) [Hepatitis A Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hepatitis-a&year=all) [Norovirus Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=norovirus&year=all) [Botulism Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=botulism&year=all) [Campylobacter Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=campylobacter&year=all) [Shigella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=shigella&year=all) [Cyclospora Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=cyclospora&year=all) ### Lawsuits updates by year [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1998](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1998) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1999](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1999) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2000](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2000) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2001](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2001) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2002](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2002) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2003](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2003) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2004](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2004) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2005](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2005) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2006](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2006) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2007](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2007) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2008](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2008) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2009](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2009) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2010](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2010) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2011](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2011) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2012](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2012) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2013](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2013) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2014](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2014) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2015](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2015) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2016](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2016) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2017](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2017) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2018](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2018) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2019](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2019) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2020](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2020) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2021](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2021) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2022](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2022) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2023](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2023) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2024](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2024) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2025](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2025) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2026](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2026) ##### Get Help #### Affected by an outbreak or recall? 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