Blue Bell Recalls Products Over Listeria Concerns
CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: It is really scary. This company thought it had the situation under control. They thought it was just one machine and it only impacted snacks that, as I was saying, the frozen ice cream sandwiches. Instead, it turns out where the -- the story gets serious is the institutional sales to hospitals and nursing homes because that -- those are the exact people who are at most risk for death when they're infected with this bacteria. And that's where it got serious. Those three deaths you mentioned were all in the same Kansas hospital.</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: People in the hospital are eating this stuff, and that's how they're getting it.</s>ALESCI: Exactly. The way the government knows it could potentially be Blue Bell is because all of those patients ate Blue Bell products in the hospital. And then they matched the strand of listeria in that ice cream with -- it was close to the strand of bacteria that the patients had. So it looks like there's a very strong connection here. We don't know definitively, but the CDC and FDA are saying stay away from all Blue Bell products, which is also very unusual for a government agency to say that.</s>BALDWIN: What's the CEO saying?</s>ALESCI: CEO has apologized. But you know, it doesn't seem like really enough. This is a small family-owned company. It's never happened to them. It's a 100-year-old company. You know, and one of the things that has come up in reporting this is how rare is it for listeria or companies to recall products because of listeria --</s>BALDWIN: What is it?</s>ALESCI: That's a good question because anecdotally there have been a number of companies just in the past few weeks that have recalled their products for listeria. Sabra hummus, for example. I'm sure you --</s>BALDWIN: I have eaten that.</s>ALESCI: I have, too. And not only that but Amy's Kitchen, who makes prepackaged vegetarian food, also recalling products for listeria. One of the reasons this might be happening is because the CDC and the FDA teamed up about a year ago to sequence the genome of listeria to make it easier to identify different strands of the bacteria. The government is actually paying more attention to it, which actually could increase the identification of this bacteria in food. So maybe this has been around for a long time. We just haven't identified it for -- until now.</s>BALDWIN: Issues to figure out how it slipped in. That's the big problem. Meantime, no one eats Blue Bell --</s>ALESCI: Absolutely not. Throw it out if it's in your freezer.</s>BALDWIN: Cristina Alesci, thank you very much.</s>ALESCI: Of course.</s>BALDWIN: Next here on CNN, a closer look at America's marijuana movement. How some are able to make millions off the stuff, while doing the same has put many others behind bars. Next, where is the curse jar when you need it? The manager for the Cincinnati Reds apologizing for this epic rant. Directed toward the media, where he somehow managed to drop -- count them with me -- 77 F- bombs.</s>BRIAN PRICE, COACH, CINCINNATI REDS: Got to