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Description:
If you’re in your 50s, 60s, 70s or beyond this video was created specifically for you.
If you or a loved one is suffering any of the following symptoms… or if you’re simply worried how you’ll deal with them if it’s your turn next – then do not skip this video:
We accept these illnesses – and the hospitals, drugs, treatments that accompany them – as a part of ‘growing old’. But scientists already know that ‘growing old’ has absolutely nothing to do with these illnesses.
In fact, they now understand the cause-and-effect for all these chronic symptoms. Better still, there is a single, simple way to turn these chronic illnesses into a distant memory.
So whether you’re ill, slightly ill – or just worried about getting ill in the future… your future is in your hands.
Watch this video and you will know more about illness, how it starts and how it ends than anybody else that you know.
And that includes your doctor.
Want text version instead of video? Here is simplified transcript…
In the west today the illnesses that plague us – and, in many cases, end us – fall into two broad categories.
The dangerous, often fatal issues – which include cardiovascular health, high blood sugars, blood pressure, cholesterol, kidney and liver problems…
…and the ongoing, ever-present health issues that rarely kill but which bring pain, discomfort and worry to millions of westerners.
The symptoms are familiar: persistent aches in joints or in the body… stomach and bowel problems, skin conditions, constant tiredness, low moods… forgetfulness, confusion… irritability and low mood.
And a general sense that things simply aren’t ‘right’, healthwise.
Both categories of health issues have one thing in common
They prove to be almost 100% resistant to anything standard medical science throws at them.
Doctors advise patients to stop smoking, to get more sleep, drink less alcohol, lose weight, exercise, eat a healthy diet, get a hobby… the usual.
For the more dangerous diseases they may put you through an intense regime of drugs, treatments and checks.
Doctors mean well but they’re more or less just managing things, hoping to stop it from getting much worse. They’re containing it, knowing for sure they can’t actually undo the illness.
If you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s or older then the chances are very high indeed that you’ll find yourself with one or both categories of illness.
Assuming you’re not already there.
They can’t make them go away because they have no clue what causes any of them.
If you don’t know what starts off a disease then how do you meaningfully treat it?
Doctors sometimes can’t even diagnose the problem – much less remedy it.
Which means they don’t always believe there’s an illness there at all.
However, stay with me here.
Because all these symptoms have something else in common.
Something that has stunned the scientific community – and which has already changed the health of thousands of the most ill people in North America.
And that’s what I’m going to tell you about now.
After decades of not knowing how any of these diseases actually arise in the first place… after trillions of dollars spent on drugs and treatments that simply tinker with symptoms…
…medical scientists finally have a grip on the underlying cause of all these conditions.
And this is the incredible thing: there is just one cause.
Even though the symptoms are wildly different they all have, at their origin, the same cause… the same illness mechanism.
Doctors tackle each symptom individually – which makes some sense. But those treatments manage your illness – they don’t rid you of it.
But this is now changing. In fact, for thousands of people it already has changed.
For them the conditions I’ve mentioned are just memories, illnesses that used to drag their lives down but which no longer do.
If you – or a person you care about – has any of these illnesses then you’re going to want to know about this.
Because people have addressed that single cause in a deceptively straightforward way that involves no drugs or doctors or any kind of medical expense. And I’d like to show you how they did it.
Before I do, let me list the kind of symptoms we’re talking about here. Everything I say from this moment on is about the following kinds of symptoms:
Kidney and liver problems
Cardiovascular health issues
Pain and immobility in the joints
Generalized aching and soreness
Irritable bowels, bloating, gas, heartburn
Underactive or overactive thyroid
Tiredness, ongoing fatigue, loss of drive
Low mood, listlessness, unexplained lack of contentment
Problems getting to sleep – or staying asleep
Irritation, short temper, mental confusion
Despite the array and variety of these health issues… despite there being hundreds of symptoms… the whole house of cards rests on a very, very simple illness mechanism.
We understand that mechanism now. And that’s resulting in startling, almost miraculous outcomes for illnesses like these.
Scientists in the US, Europe and throughout the world have identified the steps that lead to the most deadly, persistent and unpleasant health conditions – like all those I just listed.
And all paths lead back to one, single root cause.
While Big Pharma spends billions of dollars per year creating complex, cripplingly expensive treatments that manage disease… medical scientists across the world have now found that effective remedies to some of the West’s most serious health issues are just a diet-change away.
Yes, a small – possibly barely noticeable – change in some of the things we eat undoes huge, life-altering conditions within our bodies.
The small effect of that food is escalating over time throughout our bodies in a way that scientists finally understand. And it’s causing all the life-altering conditions I just described.
Now, before scoffing and wondering how changing a shopping list can save lives keep this in mind:
Most people who were once ill – but who have addressed this illness mechanism head-on – are significantly more healthy than people who simply accept their doctors’ soothing words and repeat prescriptions.
Specific, small-scale alterations to their diet mean they’ll live longer than they could otherwise have expected.
And they’ll do it without the never-ending conditions that everyone else around them will suffer as they reach their 40s, 50s and beyond.
I know that’s a bold statement. But this is your life we’re talking about. So I won’t pull punches on this.
Modern medicine reacts to health problems. It treats symptoms. It doesn’t try to fix those diseases because it doesn’t know how they came about in the first place.
So nobody in the medical profession even hopes they can reverse the illness their patient is suffering from because they’re not even trying to do that. They’re simply managing things.
The big question in medical science has always been, How do these illnesses actually start in the first place? What is their initial cause?
What is the first step in the path from good health to dangerous or lasting illness?
Remember: illness doesn’t ‘just happen’. It isn’t ‘old age’. It’s caused. Until recently we flat out have had no clue about that cause.
We understand every step in disease except that first, initial cause. If we knew what that initial cause was then we’d know how illness started – we’d have the full picture.
And knowing all the steps from that very first cause – when we were healthy – to the end disease would mean we have a step-by-step process for returning the body from illness to its pre-disease state.
Well, that first step on the path to illness is now known.
And because of this, thousands of people across the world aren’t sitting helplessly while their health deteriorates. They’re not passive in the face of their illness. Instead, they’ve walked those steps back into health.
And I know this only too well. I’ve personally shown hundreds of people the steps back to full and vibrant good health. I’ve watched them do it. It’s deeply satisfying – and very moving.
With the steps back to health now mapped out we can almost literally just undo what we originally did to get ill in the first place.
I’ll be blunt though: it takes a little time. You might feel some difference after a day or two. Or it may take a week or so for you to notice a start to a complete turnaround.
If you or a loved one have any of the symptoms we mentioned earlier then this next bit is going to change what you do about that condition.
Many of the symptoms already discussed are now an option. If you have them you can choose not to have them.
And, if you don’t have them now, you can choose to never get them ever.
Doctors have always had an incomplete view of disease.
They knew it was incomplete. They realized it was unsatisfactory. But it’s the best they had. And it’s this:
Your immune system is flooding your body with inflammatory agents – and we didn’t know why.
This inflammation attacks tissues and organs throughout your body.
The damage is slight – but it accumulates over years causing your body mounting problems
Eventually the body starts to fail – leading to any combination of the symptoms listed earlier
Which part of a person’s body will fail differs between people. The inflammation is attacking everywhere. Genetics or specific lifestyle circumstances decide on what will fail first.
But, in the end, something gives way. It always does.
This description of disease is known, proved and accepted worldwide. It’s not controversial.
But it contains a serious flaw – one that all doctors and medical scientists are all too aware of.
We accept that a malfunctioning immune system floods the body with inflammatory agents that, eventually, lead to all kinds of nasty symptoms.
But we haven’t been able to explain the cause of that malfunctioning immune system. What causes all that body-wide inflammation?
Why does the immune system go so drastically wrong for so many millions of adults?
If we can stop that initial step – the one that causes that malfunctioning immune system – then the disaster that follows that initial step simply can’t happen.
Take away that first step and we can’t actually get ill in the first place.
And if we’re already ill then, again – cut off that first step… and the source of the illness is gone. You can’t stay ill if the cause of the illness has gone.
What we need is the ‘off’ switch for our symptoms. Find that, and everything else falls into place.
Illness in the heart, the kidneys, the liver.
Pain in the joints or the body. Headaches or dizziness.
Problems with thinking and remembering. Stomach bloating or gas. Low energy and fatigue.
High blood pressure. High blood sugars. Low moods… Trouble sleeping.
Millions of men and women throughout the world struggle with some version of these every day.
Doctors manage their symptoms… but the patient stays ill.
Doctors sometimes suppress the immune system to reduce the flow of inflammation into the bloodstream.
But this is only ever a temporary relief.
Suppress the immune system and you’re now a candidate for any and every infection that comes your way. It’s only a matter of time before you catch something that’s very, very nasty.
These conditions unavoidably get worse over time, no matter what doctors do.
Because the inflammation that started damaging organs and tissues in the first place carries on doing its damage.
And drugs prescribed to deal with worsening symptoms come with their own side-effects. Too often, the side-effects are not a price worth paying for whatever relief the drug itself may offer.
All this would be very depressing…if these were still your only options. Until recently, they were your only options. But not any more. Now, there are choices.
The missing piece – the answer to why does the immune system go wrong in the first place – has been found.
And so we finally have what medical scientists have spent decades searching for: the cause of illness… our disease ‘on/off’ switch.
Your disease ‘on/off switch’ is what starts off the dysfunctional immune system that sends inflammation all round your body, attacking tissues and organs as it does so.
And your disease ‘on/off’ switch is in your gut.
The starting point of your journey into most relentless diseases and many dangerous – or fatal – ones begins there in the gut.
A hundred research papers and dozens of real-life experiments across thousands of humans have shown beyond any doubt that dysfunctional immune systems begin right there.
And what has been shown now – thousands and thousands of times now – is that if disease is addressed at this start point…. it simply disappears.
The gut is your disease on/off switch.
But why the gut, of all places?
Here’s why. Just about every human being is sensitive to at least one type of food.
For any individual – you and me included – there are one or two foods we could eat that are going to cause a far-reaching problem within our guts.
I’m not talking about an innocent stomach upset. Or some harmless gas.
I’m talking about a food that prompts the immune system to say, No thanks… and so spark off an immune reaction within the gut.
For complex reasons, the immune system sees that particular food not as nutrition but as an invader.
So it does what immune systems do: it attacks it, creating inflammation wherever in the gut that food happens to be.
As soon as your immune system reacts to that particular food in your gut… you’ve just activated your disease ‘on’ switch.
Keep eating that particular food type and your immune system will keep attacking it. Unfortunately the inflammation it uses to attack the food also attacks the surrounding gut lining.
And this is the key to your disease ‘on’ switch.
Because that inflammation starts to wear away the tight junctions that seal your gut. And now we’re in trouble.
These junctions keep food safely inside your gut.
They also ensure the trillions of bacteria that live naturally in the human gut stay in the gut. But as the junctions start to wear down they lose their ability to keep things properly sealed.
Which allows food particles and bacteria traces to leak out of the gut and into the bloodstream… and that’s when all heck breaks loose.
Because none of this should be in your bloodstream. Your immune system sees these food particles and bacteria as invaders – this time within the bloodstream itself. And, once again, it goes into fight mode.
The action of the immune system sends inflammatory agents to wherever in your bloodstream these particles are found.
The problem is that your blood gets everywhere, so those food and bacteria particles get everywhere – so the inflammation occurs everywhere.
Brain, heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas… glands, joints, muscles, bones… there’s nowhere your blood doesn’t go. And those particles – and the inflammation that’s attacking them – is going there with it.
You get ill because as well as attacking its target – the food and bacteria particles – the inflammation unavoidably damages surrounding tissues and organs throughout the body.
This can – and does – go on for many years before any actual symptoms show up.
Inflammatory agents cause small but ongoing damage to tissues throughout your entire body.
Eventually parts of you will weaken to the point that they become ill.
And that illness will start with any of the diverse symptoms we spoke about earlier. Regular, ongoing symptoms of pain, discomfort and unhappiness that doctors can’t diagnose – and their drugs can’t comfort.
Your disease switch is ‘on’ – and your doctor can’t tell you why.
It’s now confirmed beyond any doubt.
It’s the presence of a particular food – or foods – in the gut that provokes the immune system…
that creates microscopic leaks in the gut wall…
that leaks out food and bacteria particles into the bloodstream…
that are attacked everywhere by the immune system’s inflammatory agents…
which inevitably and unavoidably also attack body tissues and organs everywhere.
That first step in the journey towards illness – the food in the gut that first triggers the immune system which leads to leaks in the gut walls – is known as a food sensitivity.
When an ordinary food is regularly attacked in the gut by our immune system that’s called a ‘food sensitivity’.
Your immune system is saying, ‘No thanks’ to that type of food.
Your sensitivity to that food will trigger your immune system to act against it within the gut.
The inflammation it causes creates tiny breaches in the gut…through which food particles and bacteria start to leak into the bloodstream…
And you already know how that’s going to end.
These are the steps to illness and disease. They are logical, sequential and proven. A leaking gut lining followed by body-wide inflammation puts you on a path to inevitable tissue and organ damage.
This is how it works and this is how you are – or will – get ill.
Undoing that health issue is the reversing of those same logical, sequential steps. And now we know what those steps are, that’s what we do.
Once we identify the food that is causing all the problems we can stop eating it.
Once it has healed the leakage of food particles and gut bacteria into the bloodstream finally stops.
It’s like turning off a tap. Except rather than switching off water-flow we’re turning off the flow of food particles into the bloodstream… which means the immune system has nothing to attack. This is your disease ‘off’ switch.
That inflammation is no longer running rampant throughout your body… so your organs and tissues have the time and space they need to recover their proper function.
And as they repair themselves… the disease caused by being so damaged simply can no longer exist.
There’s no disease without cause. And now there’s no cause.
Kidney, liver and heart problems… these often deadly issues are directly linked to the ongoing body-wide inflammation we’ve been discussing.
Same with high blood pressure, uncontrolled blood sugars, cholesterol build-up, thyroid issues…
And so with repeated stomach cramps, bloating and gas… unexplained body aches, headaches and joint pain… skin conditions, obesity… all of them must have a reason to actually start.
And they start with us eating food that provokes our immune system within the gut.
And right now you’re either ill – or you realize it’s inevitable that you will be.
The thing is, which food is the source of your food sensitivity is largely specific to the individual.
You’ll have seen this yourself: one person eats pizza and pasta without bad effect… another only has to look at a pizza and they get stomach pains and tiredness.
Of course, pasta is the source of only one potential food sensitivity. There are over 170 sensitivities! At least one of them is yours – possibly more than one.
How illness will progress for you – and which other conditions you will pick up over time – is also personal to the individual. It depends mostly on lifestyle and genetic factors.
But that you will get ill is not in doubt. That inflammation attacks everywhere. Eventually, your body starts giving up.
The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health states that over 130 million Americans suffer from at least one of the ever-present, lifelong health issues that we’re discussing here. Tragically, being ill with avoidable diseases has become so normal that we’ve lost sight of the fact that they are avoidable…
We simply have to stop eating the food that causes the gut leak that causes the widespread inflammation that causes the health problems…
I know how good health is restored. I’ve not only seen it happen.
My name is Scott Davis and it’s my business to know all this.
For 4 years I studied medicine. But I gradually realized that if I were to practice medicine in the way that your doctor does then all I’d ever do for you – at best – is help you manage your condition.
Too often, you’d get slowly more ill, right before my eyes.
No thanks. That wasn’t going to be my life’s work.
Many medical students already know that natural health experts are getting real, long-term results in so many health areas that standard medicine seems helpless to address.
Now I’m a bit of a sceptic to be honest. Mostly, I go with the mainstream rather than the ‘alternatives’.
But I’m not stupid either. If it’s working before my eyes then I’m not going to ignore it.
A long story short, I dropped my medical studies. I began studying the work of health scientists whose disease research was filling in the disease jigsaw puzzle… and the natural health experts who used this research to achieve jaw-dropping health results.
My investigations took me across the world. At a health conference in London I met people who had ended all symptoms that, typically, were considered lifelong. They never expected to be able to come off their meds.
I met similar people in Sweden and Germany – lots of cases of ongoing, life-denying symptoms – where addressing food sensitivities had unwound the whole thing and given them back the healthfulness they had long given up hope for.
Back in the US I found out that none of this was unusual. Patients who addressed their food sensitivities were melting away symptoms in ways that standard medical treatments were barely affecting at all.
It looks incredible when you first see it.
But recall what I said earlier about the path from good health to bad health.
It’s made up of simple, scientifically understood steps. Nothing more, nothing less.
Instead of tinkering with the surface of the problem we’re going directly for the source of the problem. Back to where it all started to go wrong.
Remember also that your body continually strives to be well. It doesn’t simply accept illness. It wants to work as best as it possibly can.
If it’s continually struggling against a food habit then it’ll lose in the end. But switch off those habits and you’ve given your body the freedom it needs to achieve what it always tries to do – make you fit and well again.
Despite the hundreds of research papers I had read that told me to expect these outcomes I still found it astonishing at first. But I was seeing this with my own eyes.
I saw clients with high – and increasing – blood sugars gradually come off their meds because their perplexed doctors were watching their symptoms just disappear.
I’ve witnessed cardiovascular conditions ‘heal themselves’ (as one of my clients’ own doctors put it) simply because the sufferer switched off the flow of inflammation that was attacking the heart in the first place.
People have come to me with symptoms their doctors could not diagnose: pains in their joints and body, relentless fatigue, low moods, mental confusion, terrible sleep, bad skin, weight problems, irritability, anxiety and short-temper…
They’re undiagnosed because doctors aren’t looking to food sensitivity as a cause.
Some of my most ill clients – people already heavily medicated for pancreas, kidney, heart and liver disorders – were the most skeptical at first.
It didn’t seem believable that a small diet change could tackle such a huge problem. I really do understand that.
But don’t lose sight of how this is working. A food sensitivity is small – but it’s the seed for an optimal health.
It’s a small effect that turns into a huge one. Look at an acorn. Can you honestly believe that such a small thing turns into an oak tree?
That initial sensitivity in the gut is like the acorn. It leads to small leaks in the gut wall – a minor problem you won’t even notice.
But then the food and bacteria particles that leak into your bloodstream lead to a overactive immune system and body-wide inflammation.
That’s a much bigger problem – but, again, one that often takes years to affect you (which is why you only get really ill after your 40s).
The harm that this inflammation does to your body is the biggest problem. This is damage you feel, this is damage that affects your life and, for about a million adults a year, this is damage that kills.
Do you see how each step escalates from the previous one?
A food sensitivity seems so small and meaningless… but its effects accumulate over time until you find yourself ill – or very ill.
Remember: disease doesn’t just happen. It has a cause. And ‘old age’ is not the cause.
The food sensitivity is what starts it all off.
The only contribution that ‘age’ makes to the equation is that it takes years for disease to develop.
By the time you reach 40 you’ve been creating low-level, but ever-increasing inflammation in your body for long enough that its effects are now being felt.
Every year after 40 just piles on the pressure, causing your body to struggle on against increasingly mounting odds.
But it’s that food that’s doing it. Get rid of that food and everything bad disappears along with it.
My job is to get your gut in good condition. A healthy gut makes healthy bodies.
In my face-to-face practice, I can only work with small groups.
But if a million Americans a year die of the condition that I specifically work with… and over 130 million more suffer endless ongoing symptoms that their doctors simply can’t budge… then a few at a time isn’t nearly good enough.
So I have combined into a single, comprehensive strategy everything I do with people on a face-to-face basis.
What they do you can do too.
And the results they get… are the results that you can have as well.
My program is called The Ultimate Healing Protocol. I can email it to you right now.
It’s fascinating stuff – but you can skip it if you’re in a hurry to get started. .
But you must read the rest of the Protocol.
Because this explains exactly how other people are restoring sick, malfunctioning bodies back to the health and vitality they enjoyed when they were young. It explains
This Protocol is completely natural and requires no drugs, doctors or procedures.
You may need to cut out only one single type of food – and that may well be a temporary move. Many people reintroduce that food in small doses once their symptoms are clear.
Today, knowledge is king.
You already know that the gap in health outcomes used to come about from differences in wealth. If you had more money, you could get better care. Wealthier people lived longer than poorer people.
That’s not how it is anymore. Today, health inequalities come about from differences in knowledge.
Those who know how illness works will tackle their health conditions and restore themselves to full health. They’ll be able to avoid getting ill in the first place.
And it won’t cost them a single extra penny to achieve this.
Those who don’t know will be as vulnerable to relentless, unfixable disease as they ever were.
Big Pharma will sell them drugs that alleviate some of their symptoms. But they’ll stay ill and, over time, they’ll get worse.
Their money won’t save them.
Because the gap today is no longer between the haves and have-nots but the knowing and the know-nots.
You’re now one of those who knows. The world is catching up. But you’re ahead of the game.
If you – or a loved one – suffers any of the symptoms described then your struggle can soon be over.
Nobody has to suffer this anymore. Being healthy or being ill… they’re both now an option. Now you can choose.
If you’ve grown thoroughly tired of the ‘ill’ option I can help you in exactly the same way I help clients up and down the country.
The Ultimate Healing Protocol shows you how to accurately identify your specific food sensitivity so that you can eliminate it. This proven method tells you exactly what it is that is making you ill.
The pain, the discomfort, the anxiety, the cost… and the sheer inconvenience of being ill just isn’t necessary anymore. Medical science makes many new discoveries… but this is the big one.
And you can make full use of it today.
I didn’t invent this Protocol. Science did. Then researchers proved it. And thousands of people have been transformed by it.
So I can personally guarantee this program. If, any time within 60 days after ordering, you haven’t noticed a dramatic improvement in your own health then I will give you your money back. All of it.
Get The Ultimate Healing Protocol for yourself right now and you’ll see why I have 100% confidence in it.
What gets treated can improve.
What’s ignored… gets gradually worse. That bodywide inflammation continues to attack tissues and organs. If you don’t switch it off you can only get more ill.
Don’t do this to yourself.
Take the same walk back to physical health and mental and emotional wellbeing that thousands of people have already taken.
Retrace the steps that made you ill in the first place. And watch what happens to every single one of those symptoms when you do.
The Ultimate Healing Protocol is fully guaranteed. Let it do its magic for you – starting now. Click here and order your copy – it’ll be with you in minutes…
Until you fix that leaking gut the assault on your tissues and organs will not end.
It’s a 24-hour-a-day attack and with each passing day your body weakens a tiny bit.
There is such a thing as ‘too late’. There is a point at which organ damage cannot be reversed.
If you have even a whisper of the symptoms we’ve been discussing then now is the time to act.
Don’t look back 6 months from now and wish you’d acted sooner. We know how to comprehensively address what’s wrong… and now is the time. You’re 3 minutes away from turning it all around.
You can have The Ultimate Healing Protocol in about 3 minutes. Click now and I’ll send it to you.
TORONTO – Health Canada has authorized Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine that protects against currently circulating variants of the virus.
The mRNA vaccine, called Spikevax, has been reformulated to target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron.
It will replace the previous version of the vaccine that was released a year ago, which targeted the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.
Health Canada recently asked provinces and territories to get rid of their older COVID-19 vaccines to ensure the most current vaccine will be used during this fall’s respiratory virus season.
Health Canada is also reviewing two other updated COVID-19 vaccines but has not yet authorized them.
They are Pfizer’s Comirnaty, which is also an mRNA vaccine, as well as Novavax’s protein-based vaccine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
TORONTO – Sanniah Jabeen holds a sonogram of the unborn baby she lost after contracting listeria last December. Beneath, it says “love at first sight.”
Jabeen says she believes she and her baby were poisoned by a listeria outbreak linked to some plant-based milks and wants answers. An investigation continues into the recall declared July 8 of several Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages.
“I don’t even have the words. I’m still processing that,” Jabeen says of her loss. She was 18 weeks pregnant when she went into preterm labour.
The first infection linked to the recall was traced back to August 2023. One year later on Aug. 12, 2024, the Public Health Agency of Canada said three people had died and 20 were infected.
The number of cases is likely much higher, says Lawrence Goodridge, Canada Research Chair in foodborne pathogen dynamics at the University of Guelph: “For every person known, generally speaking, there’s typically 20 to 25 or maybe 30 people that are unknown.”
The case count has remained unchanged over the last month, but the Public Health Agency of Canada says it won’t declare the outbreak over until early October because of listeria’s 70-day incubation period and the reporting delays that accompany it.
Danone Canada’s head of communications said in an email Wednesday that the company is still investigating the “root cause” of the outbreak, which has been linked to a production line at a Pickering, Ont., packaging facility.
Pregnant people, adults over 60, and those with weakened immune systems are most at risk of becoming sick with severe listeriosis. If the infection spreads to an unborn baby, Health Canada says it can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth or life-threatening illness in a newborn.
The Canadian Press spoke to 10 people, from the parents of a toddler to an 89-year-old senior, who say they became sick with listeria after drinking from cartons of plant-based milk stamped with the recalled product code. Here’s a look at some of their experiences.
Sanniah Jabeen, 32, Toronto
Jabeen says she regularly drank Silk oat and almond milk in smoothies while pregnant, and began vomiting seven times a day and shivering at night in December 2023. She had “the worst headache of (her) life” when she went to the emergency room on Dec. 15.
“I just wasn’t functioning like a normal human being,” Jabeen says.
Told she was dehydrated, Jabeen was given fluids and a blood test and sent home. Four days later, she returned to hospital.
“They told me that since you’re 18 weeks, there’s nothing you can do to save your baby,” says Jabeen, who moved to Toronto from Pakistan five years ago.
Jabeen later learned she had listeriosis and an autopsy revealed her baby was infected, too.
“It broke my heart to read that report because I was just imagining my baby drinking poisoned amniotic fluid inside of me. The womb is a place where your baby is supposed to be the safest,” Jabeen said.
Jabeen’s case is likely not included in PHAC’s count. Jabeen says she was called by Health Canada and asked what dairy and fresh produce she ate – foods more commonly associated with listeria – but not asked about plant-based beverages.
She’s pregnant again, and is due in several months. At first, she was scared to eat, not knowing what caused the infection during her last pregnancy.
“Ever since I learned about the almond, oat milk situation, I’ve been feeling a bit better knowing that it wasn’t something that I did. It was something else that caused it. It wasn’t my fault,” Jabeen said.
She’s since joined a proposed class action lawsuit launched by LPC Avocates against the manufacturers and sellers of Silk and Great Value plant-based beverages. The lawsuit has not yet been certified by a judge.
Natalie Grant and her seven year-old daughter, Bowmanville, Ont.
Natalie Grant says she was in a hospital waiting room when she saw a television news report about the recall. She wondered if the dark chocolate almond milk her daughter drank daily was contaminated.
She had brought the girl to hospital because she was vomiting every half hour, constantly on the toilet with diarrhea, and had severe pain in her abdomen.
“I’m definitely thinking that this is a pretty solid chance that she’s got listeria at this point because I knew she had all the symptoms,” Grant says of seeing the news report.
Once her daughter could hold fluids, they went home and Grant cross-checked the recalled product code – 7825 – with the one on her carton. They matched.
“I called the emerg and I said I’m pretty confident she’s been exposed,” Grant said. She was told to return to the hospital if her daughter’s symptoms worsened. An hour and a half later, her fever spiked, the vomiting returned, her face flushed and her energy plummeted.
Grant says they were sent to a hospital in Ajax, Ont. and stayed two weeks while her daughter received antibiotics four times a day until she was discharged July 23.
“Knowing that my little one was just so affected and how it affected us as a family alone, there’s a bitterness left behind,” Grant said. She’s also joined the proposed class action.
Thelma Feldman, 89, Toronto
Thelma Feldman says she regularly taught yoga to friends in her condo building before getting sickened by listeria on July 2. Now, she has a walker and her body aches. She has headaches and digestive problems.
“I’m kind of depressed,” she says.
“It’s caused me a lot of physical and emotional pain.”
Much of the early days of her illness are a blur. She knows she boarded an ambulance with profuse diarrhea on July 2 and spent five days at North York General Hospital. Afterwards, she remembers Health Canada officials entering her apartment and removing Silk almond milk from her fridge, and volunteers from a community organization giving her sponge baths.
“At my age, 89, I’m not a kid anymore and healing takes longer,” Feldman says.
“I don’t even feel like being with people. I just sit at home.”
Jasmine Jiles and three-year-old Max, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, Que.
Jasmine Jiles says her three-year-old son Max came down with flu-like symptoms and cradled his ears in what she interpreted as a sign of pain, like the one pounding in her own head, around early July.
When Jiles heard about the recall soon after, she called Danone Canada, the plant-based milk manufacturer, to find out if their Silk coconut milk was in the contaminated batch. It was, she says.
“My son is very small, he’s very young, so I asked what we do in terms of overall monitoring and she said someone from the company would get in touch within 24 to 48 hours,” Jiles says from a First Nations reserve near Montreal.
“I never got a call back. I never got an email”
At home, her son’s fever broke after three days, but gas pains stuck with him, she says. It took a couple weeks for him to get back to normal.
“In hindsight, I should have taken him (to the hospital) but we just tried to see if we could nurse him at home because wait times are pretty extreme,” Jiles says, “and I don’t have child care at the moment.”
Joseph Desmond, 50, Sydney, N.S.
Joseph Desmond says he suffered a seizure and fell off his sofa on July 9. He went to the emergency room, where they ran an electroencephalogram (EEG) test, and then returned home. Within hours, he had a second seizure and went back to hospital.
His third seizure happened the next morning while walking to the nurse’s station.
In severe cases of listeriosis, bacteria can spread to the central nervous system and cause seizures, according to Health Canada.
“The last two months have really been a nightmare,” says Desmond, who has joined the proposed lawsuit.
When he returned home from the hospital, his daughter took a carton of Silk dark chocolate almond milk out of the fridge and asked if he had heard about the recall. By that point, Desmond says he was on his second two-litre carton after finishing the first in June.
“It was pretty scary. Terrifying. I honestly thought I was going to die.”
Cheryl McCombe, 63, Haliburton, Ont.
The morning after suffering a second episode of vomiting, feverish sweats and diarrhea in the middle of the night in early July, Cheryl McCombe scrolled through the news on her phone and came across the recall.
A few years earlier, McCombe says she started drinking plant-based milks because it seemed like a healthier choice to splash in her morning coffee. On June 30, she bought two cartons of Silk cashew almond milk.
“It was on the (recall) list. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I got listeria,’” McCombe says. She called her doctor’s office and visited an urgent care clinic hoping to get tested and confirm her suspicion, but she says, “I was basically shut down at the door.”
Public Health Ontario does not recommend listeria testing for infected individuals with mild symptoms unless they are at risk of developing severe illness, such as people who are immunocompromised, elderly, pregnant or newborn.
“No wonder they couldn’t connect the dots,” she adds, referencing that it took close to a year for public health officials to find the source of the outbreak.
“I am a woman in my 60s and sometimes these signs are of, you know, when you’re vomiting and things like that, it can be a sign in women of a bigger issue,” McCombe says. She was seeking confirmation that wasn’t the case.
Disappointed, with her stomach still feeling off, she says she decided to boost her gut health with probiotics. After a couple weeks she started to feel like herself.
But since then, McCombe says, “I’m back on Kawartha Dairy cream in my coffee.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
