She had a very rough start, having contracted listeriosis in her mother’s womb in 2017, but in recent years, “Baby T” appeared to have triumphed and was thriving at preschool. Until a recent, devastating setback.
“In December she began messing her pants and doctors confirmed she has lost control of her bladder and bowel,” said her mom.
The Limpopo mother of three is a plaintiff in the class action listeriosis case against Tiger Brands which was lodged more than four years ago.
“She’s five now, so she knows what’s happening and she’s humiliated,” the mom said. “The teacher and the transport driver keep complaining about the situation and many of the other children are bullying and taunting her, so of course, she doesn’t want to go to school any more.”
The parents have medical aid, but it doesn’t cover all their costs, specifically the regular scans “Baby T” needs, at R2,700 each.
“My husband and I are emotionally and financially drained. We’ve had to sell our house to survive,” she said.
She’s contemplating homeschooling her youngest daughter as sending her to school is no longer an option.
“We have no idea when the class action case will happen. It’s very painful. I feel helpless. The people who are responsible for this damage to my child are not taking responsibility.”
Born three days before Christmas in 2017‚ Baby T and her mother are among 1,060 South Africans who contracted listeriosis between January 2017 and July 2018. Tragically, 218 died, most of them babies younger than four weeks, making it the world’s worst outbreak of the deadly food-borne disease.
When newborn Baby T’s little head starting swelling, she was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, a fairly common symptom of listeriosis. By the time she was six months old, she’d had three operations to insert a shunt into the ventricles of her brain to prevent excess fluid from causing damage. And all because, evidence suggests, her mother had a thing for Mielie Kip chicken polony and other Enterprise products.
Through contact tracing, whole-genome sequencing and other scientific techniques, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) concluded that Tiger Brands’ Polokwane meat-processing facility was the source of the outbreak. Then health minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced the news in March 2018 and instructed the company to recall its polony products.
“The public health investigation of this outbreak was unprecedented in scope,” says attorney Bill Marler, who is assisting with the lawsuit brought by Richard Spoor and Associates and LHL Attorneys. Marler’s Seattle-based firm has handled thousands of food-outbreak cases around the world in the past 30 years.
“Despite overwhelming scientific evidence to prove Tiger Brands mass produced and distributed contaminated polony that killed more than 200 people, led to the miscarriage and still births of another 200 babies, and maimed hundreds more, Tiger Brands refuses to accept responsibility,” Spoor said in a tweet last week. “The result is that many children, like Baby T, are denied the medical care and support they require, and continue to suffer needlessly. It enrages me.”
Asked how the company justified not providing Baby T’s family with interim relief by paying the child’s outstanding medical costs, Tiger Brands said it had yet to receive “a quantified claim, supported by medical reports and proof of loss or expenses for any individual claimant”, including this family.
The company said: “This is despite ongoing efforts to secure such proof in those instances where the individual established a positive link to Tiger Brands’ products having caused injury.
“In addition, as part of the overall endeavour to expedite resolution of the matter, Tiger Brands’ legal team and Richard Spoor have recently reached agreement to jointly approach the NICD for access to their records, which are vital to a determination of the action.
“The approach has been made and we are awaiting the NICD’s response. The release of this data is critical to enable the resolution of the matter to be expedited.”
The company said it was saddened by the impact listeriosis had on the lives of the victims and those who had lost loved ones in the outbreak.
“Tiger Brands reiterates its commitment to ensure that a resolution of the matter is reached in the shortest possible time, in the interest of all parties, particularly the victims of listeriosis.”
Responding, Spoor said while it was true Tiger Brands had not received a “quantified claim supported by medical reports”, the company had received substantial documentation outlining the harm caused to Baby T and several hundred other clients.
“As early as March 2018 we wrote to Tiger Brands’ attorney requesting assistance, on a without prejudice basis, for Baby T. The company gave no indication that they were willing to assist. They did however make an intrusive and irrelevant request for information.”
Spoor said his firm had appointed three renowned world experts in the field, all of whom confirmed the reliability and correctness of the NICD report.
“We have furnished those reports to Tiger Brands and invited them to point out where and on what grounds they disagree with those expert opinions, but the company has declined to do so,” he said.
“Tiger and their attorneys have done their utmost to delay the proceedings, firstly by engaging in what the Supreme Court of Appeal labelled a fishing exercise to compel disclosure of confidential information from other food producers, in the hope there may just be another possible source of the ST6 strain that was missed by the NICD in the course of its comprehensive and detailed investigation.
“That took two years and yielded nothing. The manufacturers have confirmed on affidavit that no ST6 strain was found in their products or facilities during the period.”
The current delay is due to what Spoor calls “an extremely burdensome request” to see the massive volume of data in the possession of the NICD that records the precise genomic sequencing of all the samples, sequenced by the NICD and other scientific institutions around the world.
“The NICD is having great difficulty complying with that request due to resource and capacity restraints. [This is] holding up the proceedings and has done so for almost a year,” Spoor said.
His firm proposed its and Tiger Brands’ experts meet to agree on the minimum information that is necessary to obtain for the purposes of Tiger's defence, he said.
“Tiger’s attorneys have declined to permit such a meeting.
“If the company has any scientific or objective grounds to dispute the NICD findings, they have consistently failed or refused to do so.”
In the meantime, Spoor said, “interim assistance for victims on a without prejudice basis and without admission of liability would also be gratefully received and we remain open to engage as to how that might be done.”
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