An Internet-generated story charging that bananas imported from Costa
Rica have been contaminated with “flesh-eating” bacteria is false,
according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, which
has posted a response to the rumor on its website.
The federal health agency said that while “necrotizing fasciitis”
indeed can be transmitted in foods, the “usual route is
person-to-person.” Officials at the CDC concluded that this specific
bacterium “cannot survive long on the surface of a banana.”
According to an e-mail version of the rumor, “several shipments of
bananas” ostensibly had been contaminated in Costa Rica, then shipped to
the United States where the FDA allegedly was reluctant to inform the
public because they “didn’t want to start a panic.”
The FDA, the rumor said, had already “secretly admitted that they
feel upwards of 15,000 Americans will be affected by this, but that
these are acceptable numbers.”
The rumor also claimed that the disease had “already decimated the
monkey population in Costa Rica” and that “just recently” the disease
had managed to “graft itself to the skin of fruits.”
On Jan. 27, WND debunked another popular Internet rumor
dealing with the KFC restaurant chain. That report, which is totally
false, claimed KFC was not using real chickens but instead a genetically
altered replacement without beaks or feet.
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