Raspberry smoothies didn't sit well with some cruise passengers last year.
Back in the summer of 2019, hundreds of passengers on 10 different European cruises all came down with an illness that rapidly caused vomiting and diarrhea. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the source of the outbreaks: a smoothie made with frozen raspberries.
All of the sick passengers _ who came down with norovirus, not coronavirus _ were sickened on cruise ships from the same company, which went unidentified in the CDC report. Throughout the summer, the cruise line tried unsuccessfully to figure out the culprit, but after one of the sickened ships sailed into U.S. jurisdiction in September, the CDC joined in on the detective work.
Through a food questionnaire given to the sick passengers on a couple of ships, a common factor was identified: a smoothie made from frozen fruits and berries. Further testing specifically implicated frozen raspberries, 22,000 pounds of which the cruise ship had purchased from a supplier from China.
The World Health Organization went on to issue a recall for those raspberries in November 2019.
