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What to Listen to Next - MrBallen's Medical Mysteries

August 27, 2024·32 min·2 clips

Dr. Miller diagnoses Shigella, but then the sick boy's mother starts vomiting—revealing how contagious this bacteria truly is.

This episode is a cross-promotion from the podcast Hysterical, featuring a complete episode of MrBallen's Medical Mysteries called Common Ground. The story centers on a real 1998 Shigella outbreak that began when eight-year-old Toby Anderson was rushed to a Minneapolis emergency room at 4 a.m. with severe stomach pains, fever, and sweating. Dr. Jean Miller, the attending physician, orders blood and stool tests that identify Shigella bacteria. Soon after, four-year-old Peyton Egger arrives with identical symptoms, despite living in a different suburb. When Toby's mother also falls ill, Dr. Miller suspects an outbreak and contacts the Minnesota Department of Health. Young epidemiologist Dr. Julie Wickland takes the case and discovers both families had recently eaten at the same restaurant, Roberta's. An investigation of the restaurant finds multiple sick employees, but the timeline shows customers were getting sick before the employees, ruling out person-to-person transmission at the restaurant as the source. A second cluster of cases emerges at a different restaurant called Marty's, far from Roberta's. The two restaurants share no employees, no water supply, and serve completely different menus. Dr. Wickland contacts the CDC, where epidemic intelligence officer Dr. Timothy Niemi runs the Shigella strain through a national database and finds matching outbreaks from Los Angeles to Boston to Canada. CDC investigators compile ingredient lists from all affected restaurants and identify parsley as the common element, which they term a "stealth food" because it appears in many dishes but goes unnoticed. FDA investigator Jeremy Brown traces the parsley to Valle Verde farm in Ensenada, Mexico. The farm's wells and reservoir test clean, but the hydro cooler used to chill the parsley before shipping uses Ensenada's municipal water. At the water plant, Jeremy discovers the chlorination system has been broken for over a month due to government funding cutbacks. Testing confirms the municipal water is loaded with the same Shigella strain. An estimated one thousand diners were infected, though there were no fatalities. Both Toby and Peyton eventually made full recoveries.

As heard by us

A compact handoff into Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, framed by a Minnesota food-poisoning mystery.

Hysterical closes with a recommendation for Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, leaning into listeners who are drawn to real-life oddities and psychological intrigue.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a quick doorway into a medical mystery with escalating stakes.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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