Ep. 44 | Needle in a Haystack
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Hey Prime members, you can binge episodes 41 through 48 of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries right now and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. In August of 2021, a young woman in Georgia stood on the street watching in amazement as people in white hazmat suits carried dozens of items out of her house inside of plastic Ziploc bags. It looked like her beloved home was now being used as the set for a science fiction film.

But the woman knew that the unfolding disaster in front of her was all too real. Her daughter had recently become infected by a deadly, mysterious bacteria, and nobody had any idea where it had come from.

So not only were this woman and her family at risk, but thousands of other people could be too. That's why on this warm summer afternoon, officials from the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC for short, were scouring this woman's property, gathering samples of soil, plants, food, and other household items for their laboratories to analyze. As the woman stood in front of her house out on the road, she closed her eyes and prayed that the CDC's search of her home would be successful.

something in her house had already nearly killed her daughter. If they couldn't find the source of the bacteria, her home would continue to be a danger to the people she loved the most.

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From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Mr. Ballin, and this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we will explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. So if you like today's story, the next time the follow button is not home, release a family of wild raccoons into their attic. This episode is called Needle in a Haystack. Josie Baker smiled as she watched her four-year-old daughter, Lila, hunt for frogs near the stream behind their house.

Josie's other daughter, one-year-old Adelaide, gripped her mother's hand as she wobbled forward to see what her big sister was up to. On this sunny afternoon in late March of 2021, the 24-year-old mother felt like her dreams were actually coming true. Just over a year ago, Josie had moved into this small house in the farmlands north of Dallas, Texas with her family. They all loved the fresh air and wide open space, and little Lila had become close friends with the cows that grazed in the pasture next door.

Josie shared her daughter's love of animals. She actually worked as a veterinary assistant in a local animal hospital, and the family had even taken in a pet raccoon named Jinx. Josie checked her watch and realized her husband, Dustin, would be home soon from his job as a firefighter and paramedic, and so she needed to start fixing dinner. She called out to Lila and scooped up baby Adelaide, then the whole crew headed for the back door of their house.

But the moment Josie stepped inside the house, she was overwhelmed by a strong floral smell like someone nearby was wearing way too much perfume. Josie held her nose and peeked inside the kitchen.

and it was a total mess. Cabinet doors were wide open, and it looked like the food inside had been hurled across the room. Boxes of cereal and bags of chips were ripped open and spilled all over the counter and the floor. The cabinet under the kitchen sink was also open, and broken bottles of dishwashing detergent and other cleaning supplies were spread out all over the place. And when Josie looked closely, she saw something else: tiny animal footprints tracking the mess out of the room. Now Josie knew exactly what had happened to her kitchen.

Jinx, their raccoon, had ransacked it. Jinx was supposed to live in an enclosure in the living room, but clearly he'd escaped and decided to have some fun in the kitchen. Josie ultimately found Jinx hiding under the bed in Lila's bedroom, and while she was mad, she couldn't really stay mad at him as he stared out at her with his little black cute eyes, and so Josie coaxed him out with some food before picking him up and returning him to his pen. As she swept up the broken glass in the kitchen, Josie felt like she actually had kind of dodged a bullet here.

Because, you know, this could have been a whole lot worse if maybe her girls had come into the house ahead of her and maybe got cut on all the shards of glass lying around. And so as she dumped the trash into a wastebasket, she had to admit to herself that all in all, the whole scene in front of her was actually kind of funny. You know, while the house may be a total mess and a total pain to clean up, one thing was certain. Their little raccoon, Jinx, after breaking into all the cleaning supplies, was now the sweetest smelling raccoon in the state of Texas.

Two weeks later, after tucking in the girls for the night, Josie walked back out to the living room to snuggle up on the couch with her husband Dustin. But when she stepped into the room, she found Dustin standing in the corner, staring into Jinx's enclosure. Josie was curious, and so she walked over to see what he was looking at, and when she looked down, she gasped. Jinx was acting so weird.

The raccoon swayed and staggered as he walked around his enclosure, almost like he was drunk. He also kept bumping into objects and walls, which made Josie think maybe his vision was impaired. Because of her job as a veterinary technician, Josie had been around plenty of sick animals. But Jinx's condition was something she'd actually never seen before in any other animal. So she told Dustin that she would bring Jinx with her to the animal hospital first thing in the morning.

The next morning, Josie stood by while one of the vets at her hospital examined her raccoon. But after a few minutes, the vet turned to Josie and admitted that they too were totally stumped by whatever was bothering Jinx. They didn't understand what it was. Josie agreed that the best course of action now would be to keep Jinx under observation at the hospital and run some additional tests.

But over the course of his stay, nothing the veterinarians did seemed to help Jinx. And in fact, Jinx just seemed to get sicker and sicker until he basically just lay in his cage, panting with his tongue out. And then two days after he had come to the hospital, Jinx died. Josie was devastated, but she was far more concerned about how her daughter Lila would react to Jinx's passing. She was going to be absolutely heartbroken.

The day after Jinx's death, the Baker family walked solemnly down the path behind their house towards the stream, and they buried Jinx under a tree. At the end of the service, Josie kneeled down and helped a very sad Lila plant flowers atop her beloved pet's final resting place. A few weeks later, on the afternoon of May 29th, Josie sat on her living room couch right next to Lila, who for the past couple of days had been vomiting and running a fever.

Her pediatrician had said that it was probably just a stomach flu and recommended rest and fluids. So Josie had pulled together all these pillows and blankets and put them on the couch to let her daughter relax and watch TV while she recuperated. However, as Josie looked at her sleeping daughter beside her, she felt increasingly worried. Josie had been carefully following the doctor's instructions, but Lila's fever really hadn't broken yet and she was still struggling to keep her food down.

Lila had been sleeping for a couple of hours now, so Josie gently placed her hand on Lila's forehead and whispered to her to wake up so she could drink some water. But as Lila slowly opened her eyes, Josie could see that they looked glazed over and unfocused. Josie tried to help Lila sit up, but the little girl could barely lift her head. Josie immediately wrapped her daughter in a blanket and carried her to the car. Her barely conscious four-year-old needed to see a doctor right away.

Later that day, Josie climbed out of an ambulance outside of the Children's Hospital in Dallas, Texas, while orderlies ran to help unload Lila from the back. The doctor at their local hospital, where Josie had gone first, had told Josie that based on her daughter's condition, you know, this local hospital could not help her. They needed specialized care. So Lila had been rushed in an ambulance to a major pediatric hospital instead. Once Lila was unloaded from the ambulance, she was immediately taken up to the intensive care unit.

At the same time, a doctor named Catherine Merrill met with Josie in the hallway to explain what they were going to do to treat her daughter. Dr. Merrill said that Lila's white blood cell count was very high, which was a strong indicator that Lila was fighting off an infection. Josie listened carefully as the doctor laid out the range of tests they planned to run to try to figure out where this infection came from and where it was located in Lila's body.

Dr. Merrill also explained that while the testing was in progress, they would also be administering antibiotics to Lila to help her fight off whatever this infection was. As they talked, Josie could hear her daughter throwing up again, so Josie quickly thanked the doctor and rushed back to her daughter's bedside. Over the next couple of days, the doctors and nurses and medical team ran dozens of tests on Lila, but unfortunately, the results of those tests didn't really tell them anything.

All the tests could confirm was that whatever was going on with Lila was not one of the common suspects, like bacterial meningitis or a foodborne disease like salmonella. And as each test came back basically showing nothing, Dr. Merrill became more and more confused. Meanwhile, Lila's condition grew even worse. Her frequent vomiting caused her to have trouble breathing, which led to low oxygen levels in her blood.

So, Dr. Merrill decided to insert a breathing tube through Lila's nose and down her windpipe, requiring the little girl to be heavily sedated. Lila's illness consumed the entire family as first Josie and then Dustin took leave from their jobs so they could spend more time at the hospital with their girl. But day after day, no new information came in and Lila kept getting worse. Not only was she completely incapable of holding her head up now, she couldn't even walk or speak.

And so it wasn't long before Josie and Dustin began to fear the worst, that they might never get their sweet, energetic four-year-old back. One night in June, nearly two weeks after Lila got sick, Dr. Merrill entered Lila's hospital room and found her parents at her bedside as usual. After giving Lila an extensive examination, Dr. Merrill thought that this infection was actually attacking Lila's brain and nervous system.

In order to find out for sure, Lila's doctors would perform a brain biopsy, which meant they would cut a small opening in Lila's skull to acquire tiny samples of her brain tissue. Josie thought that sounded like a very intense operation for such a young girl in such a weakened state already, but the brain biopsy was also their best remaining hope to find out what was going on with her.

So Josie and Dustin looked at each other for a moment, and it was clear they both understood they didn't really have a choice here. They had to do this. So they told Dr. Merrill to go ahead with the procedure. Mr. Ballin' Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Lila was still not able to speak or walk, but she had made it through the brain biopsy just fine and was actually starting to show small signs of improvement. And so Josie was actually feeling optimistic for the first time in a while. But moments later, Dr. Merrill entered and pulled up a chair to speak with the parents. The results had come back from the brain biopsy and there was finally an answer to what was ailing their daughter. But the answer was not a good one.

Dr. Merrill said that Lila was suffering from a rare and potentially deadly bacterial infection known as Melioidosis. The doctor explained that once this bacteria invades a person's system, it causes pus-filled abscesses in whatever tissue it reaches, which is why nearly 40% of Melioidosis patients die.

And in Lila's case, the bacteria had entered her brain and nervous system, which was why she was having so much trouble moving and speaking, and seemed very disoriented. All of this was obviously totally devastating to Josie and Dustin, but the doctor told the very upset parents that there actually was reason for hope. Now that they actually knew which bacteria was making their daughter sick, they could give her the right antibiotics to help Lila try to defeat the infection once and for all.

Two weeks after Lila's brain biopsy, a woman in her 20s named Julia Petrus arrived at the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC for short, in Atlanta, Georgia, for her first day as an epidemic intelligence officer. For years, Julia had worked as a nurse, providing health services to refugees in Bangladesh and Uganda. More recently, she provided medical care for homeless people in Santa Barbara, California, in the early stages of the COVID pandemic.

And now she was excited to take on a new challenge. As an epidemic intelligence officer, Julia was now basically a disease detective who would investigate mysterious outbreaks and do her best to prevent the spread of infections. As Julia sat down at her desk and checked her email inbox for the first time, she could see that she was already invited to a Zoom meeting that was starting in just a few minutes.

CDC officials would be briefing the FBI about a recent outbreak of Melioidosis, a very rare bacterial infection. Julia was familiar with Melioidosis, but she didn't understand why this disease would involve the FBI, an agency that investigates crimes. But regardless, moments later, Julia clicked the link on her calendar and logged into the Zoom meeting.

After a quick round of introductions, a CDC official began the briefing with a discussion of the case of four-year-old Lila Baker, who was still in the Dallas Children's Hospital suffering from melioidosis. Julia also learned from this meeting that two other cases of melioidosis had been reported in the U.S. in the last four months. There was a woman in Kansas who died nine days after being admitted to the hospital and a man in Minnesota who was still fighting his symptoms.

But there was something strange about all three of these cases. Melioidosis was caused by a bacteria that, for all intents and purposes, did not exist in the United States. The bacteria was mostly found in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. Usually, the only way a person in the United States got melioidosis was by traveling to a region of the world where the bacteria was present.

But none of these three patients had traveled outside the United States any time recently. Julia could understand why the CDC wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. It obviously was in their purview. But she still wasn't sure why the FBI was on this call with them.

And it was at this point that one of her colleagues reminded the other attendees on the meeting that this bacteria was so toxic that it was classified as a Tier 1 Select Agent and the federal government viewed it as a potential weapon if it got into the wrong hands. And so at this point, the official said the CDC could not rule out the possibility that this Melioidosis bacteria had been released into the United States intentionally.

meaning this could potentially be an act of bioterrorism, which is why the FBI was now being briefed up on the situation. Julia was absolutely shocked at this revelation. This was quite an assignment for her first day on the job, and it wasn't even lunchtime. Before her wild first day at the CDC was over, Julia had ordered DNA analysis from the bacteria that was collected from the three patients, and within days, the results confirmed exactly what the CDC had feared.

The three samples were genetically identical, meaning they had all come from the same place. And further investigation revealed to Julia and her colleagues that this particular strain of bacteria could be traced to southern Asia. Julia's next question was how did the bacteria move all the way from Asia to three separate households in the United States? Had it come here on an infected plant or animal, in soil, or a commercial product?

Or could it actually have been spread by a bioterrorist who just wanted to hurt people? There were literally thousands of possibilities, and Julia knew that the only way to narrow them down was to find out what the three victim households had in common. So she picked up the phone and started calling all the families of the victims. She needed to let them know that the CDC was going to go to their homes and search them.

A few days later, Julia drove through the wide-open farmlands of northern Texas on her way to the home of the Baker family. The day before, she had spoken with Josie and Dustin Baker about the need for her to come and collect samples from their property. Other CDC officers were going to scour the homes of the patients from Kansas and Minnesota with the same goal, finding Melioidosis bacteria.

As Julia pulled her car into the gravel driveway in front of the Baker's home, a woman came out and introduced herself as Josie's sister. She said that Josie and Dustin were still at the hospital with Lila, but she was here now to let Julia know that she had free reign to collect whatever material she thought was relevant to her investigation. Julia thanked her, then started searching every inch of the Baker property for anything that looked like it could have come from Asia.

She collected samples of food and cleaning products and placed them in plastic bags. Then she scraped algae from an empty aquarium she found behind the house, since there had been cases where imported tropical fish carried the deadly bacteria. Finally, Julia took soil samples from the bank of the stream near the house, as well as from the plants.

As Julia waved to the sister and drove away from the Baker's home, she felt she had been very thorough in her investigation. Although she was still new to this job, she felt like it was very possible to her that the bacteria they were looking for was hidden inside one of the bags and bottles in the trunk of her car right now. A couple of weeks later, in late July, Julia sat in a conference room with the other CDC investigators on her team.

Julia scrolled through the pages of laboratory results on her laptop, but she admitted to her colleagues that she was totally stumped. Investigators had gathered hundreds of samples from the three locations where people got sick, but none of them contained any trace of the bacteria. But before Julia could start to discuss next steps, one of her colleagues cleared his throat and asked for everyone's attention. Then he read out loud from an email that had just come in on his phone. And as he read, Julia grew even more troubled.

The CDC had just gotten word of a fourth case of Melioidosis. This one was in Georgia. The patient was a 5-year-old boy who, like the other three patients, had never traveled to any region of the world where this bacteria was present. DNA analysis showed that the bacteria that infected him was identical to the samples from the other three patients. So he'd most likely gotten it from the same source as all the other patients.

Julia closed her eyes as she thought about this new information. The news from Georgia was obviously distressing, but the fact that only one new case had emerged over the course of the last month was probably good news. If terrorists were trying to use the bacteria as a weapon, wouldn't there be many more victims by now? Julia was beginning to think that this outbreak couldn't be an act of bioterrorism. But if this outbreak wasn't bioterrorism, then what was it?

Something was causing people to get sick all across the country and the CDC had no idea what it was. As Julia walked back to her office, lost in thought, she suddenly felt resolved. Their investigation had indeed been thorough and comprehensive, but clearly they had to do more. A few weeks later, on a warm evening in the middle of August 2021, Josie Baker stood by Lila as her daughter's wheelchair was lowered from a van to the ground outside their home.

Friends and family were gathered by the front door, clapping and cheering. After two and a half months in the hospital, Lila was finally home. Josie was overwhelmed with emotion as she carefully pushed her daughter up a ramp that had been installed outside their house just a week prior. Lila's physical condition had stabilized and she was now breathing on her own. But as Josie watched Dustin lift Lila out of her wheelchair and gently lay her on her bed, Josie also knew that there was a long and challenging road ahead of them.

Lila had still not regained her ability to speak or walk. Even holding her head upright continued to be a challenge. Josie had to accept a painful truth. There was a good possibility that her daughter had suffered permanent damage to her nervous system. And Josie had another worry. She still had no idea how or where Lila had picked up the bacteria. CDC investigators had not found the bacteria on their property, but it still seemed possible to Josie that it could still be lurking somewhere in their house.

So she couldn't shake the idea that if they continued to live in this house, at some point, somebody else in the family was going to get this disease as well. Later that same month, in one of the conference rooms for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Julia picked up a dry erase pen and started drawing on a whiteboard. Julia had been on the case for almost two months, and the agency still had no clue how the four patients had contracted this bacteria.

Julia knew time was running out to solve this puzzle. The more time passed, the greater the chance that the source of the bacteria might be spread to other locations. So Julia thought, you know, maybe if she just wrote down everything they knew on this whiteboard, that maybe somehow it would help her connect all the dots. Julia's colleagues watched as she divided the board into four columns, one for each of the patients.

Under each column, Julia listed key details, including dates, medical symptoms, and environmental factors that could be relevant. As the board began to fill up, the team searched for any common factors that could help narrow their search for the source of the bacteria. At some point, Julia had written a ton on this board and just stepped back and looked at it. And when she did, she saw it.

three of the four patients showed signs that the infection had entered their brains, including the patients in Texas, Georgia, and Minnesota. Julia realized that this common thread could be an important clue as to how the bacteria entered the bodies of these patients. If their brains were infected, the bacteria most likely entered their body through their noses rather than through a cut or something they ate or drank.

because the quickest route to the brain was through the nasal cavity, meaning there was a very good chance that in all of these cases, the bacteria was somehow inhaled. Julia felt re-energized. Even though CDC investigators had now made multiple trips to the victims' homes to collect samples, Julia knew now that they had this information about inhaling the bacteria, that they would have to visit all of them one more time. Minutes later, Julia left and headed back to her apartment and began to pack her suitcase.

Over the weeks that followed, Julia and her colleagues returned to the homes of all four patients and retrieved more samples for testing. They collected anything and everything they could find that could possibly be inhaled, regardless of whether it could have come from Asia. Julia and her colleagues knew they were ultimately searching for a needle in a haystack, but they had to try. And so by September, Julia and the rest of the CDC team had sent hundreds of additional specimens to their laboratory for analysis.

And finally, in October of 2021, Julia received a call from a microbiologist who was assigned to this case. The search was finally over. A sample retrieved from the Georgia site contained traces of the Melioidosis bacteria. And so after hearing this, it didn't take long for Julia and her team to figure out how the bacteria actually made the trip from Asia to America, causing four Americans to be attacked by a bacteria so toxic

that the government considered it a potential bioweapon. But in the case of 4-year-old Lila Baker, the spread of the bacteria actually got an assist from a very unusual accomplice. Seven months earlier, in March of 2021, while Josie was watching Lila hunt for frogs near the stream behind their house, the family's beloved pet raccoon, Jenks, was busy ransacking their kitchen.

Jinx was on a hunt for food, and he had made a huge mess as he opened every cabinet and drawer, ripping open boxes and bags in search of a tasty snack. Jinx eventually climbed onto the counter near the sink, and he saw a small bottle of liquid. The raccoon soon knocked the bottle off the counter, causing it to break open and spill onto the kitchen floor, releasing that very strong floral aroma into the kitchen. And then when Josie and the kids entered the house, Jinx made a run for it.

hopping into that puddle and tracking that floral-smelling liquid throughout the house as he ran away to hide. The bottle that Jinx knocked off the shelf was a United States-branded product that Josie bought at Walmart a few weeks earlier, and that same product had been purchased by all four of the households that had been struck by Melioidosis.

What Josie and the other families did not realize is that while they had all bought this American product at a local American store, it was actually manufactured and bottled at a factory near the southern tip of India. The bacteria that causes Malioidosis was known to thrive in the wetter environments of this particular region of India.

And somehow, in the process of manufacturing thousands of bottles of this air freshener, known as Better Homes and Gardens Lavender and Chamomile Essential Oil Infused Aromatherapy Room Spray, the bacteria got into the liquid inside. The bottles were then shipped to Walmart stores all across the United States. When customers used the product inside their home, particles of the Melioidosis bacteria were sprayed into the air, where they were all inhaled by the people who lived there.

Now, most of the people who inhaled the bacteria were healthy enough to fight off the bacteria and they did not get seriously ill. But the victims in Kansas and Minnesota had other conditions that made them more vulnerable to this infection. And Lila and the young boy in Georgia were just so young that their immature immune systems were unable to fight off the bacteria before serious damage was done to their bodies.

As soon as the source of this bacteria was identified, the CDC alerted Walmart, and Walmart quickly discontinued sale of the product and withdrew it from the market. Consumers who purchased the spray were told not to throw it away or pour it down the drain since that could increase the risk of spreading the bacteria. Instead, they were directed to put the bottle inside of two Ziploc bags, then place it inside of a cardboard box, and then physically return it to a Walmart store. But that was not quite the end of this story.

CDC investigator Julia Petras eventually learned of a fifth potential victim of this strain of the Melioidosis bacteria: Jinks, the Baker family's beloved pet raccoon who died shortly after breaking the bottle that contained the contaminated air freshener. Julia hated the idea of disturbing Jinks' grave in the Baker's backyard, but there was a chance that the Melioidosis bacteria had actually spread into the environment after he was buried.

And so, on April 19th, 2022, Julia and other CDC officials returned to the Bakers' home in Texas and dug up Jinks' body. But after doing some analysis, Julia and the Baker family were relieved to discover that although Jinks had died of melioidosis, no additional bacteria was detected in the soil or vegetation surrounding Jinks' grave. As of late 2023, Lila Baker has not regained her ability to speak or walk.

Josie quit her job at the animal hospital and devoted herself full-time to the care of her daughter. Sadly, the little boy in Georgia died from the infection. However, the other two human patients did make full recoveries.

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to new episodes of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. And also, Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries ad-free. Join Wondery Plus today. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at listenersurvey.com. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr. Ballin.

A quick note about our stories: we use aliases sometimes because we don't know the names of the real people in the story. And also, in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, but everything is based on a lot of research. And a reminder: the content in this episode is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

This episode was written by Matt Olmos. Our editor is Heather Dundas. Sound design is by Ryan Patesta. Our coordinating producer is Taylor Sniffen, and our managing producer is Sophia Martins. Our senior producer is Alex Benidon. Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Bytack and Tasia Peliconda. Fact-checking was done by Sheila Patterson. For Ballin Studios, our head of production is Zach Levitt.

Script editing is by Scott Allen and Evan Allen. Our coordinating producer is Matub Zare. Executive producers are myself, Mr. Ballin, and Nick Witters. For Wondery, our head of sound is Marcelino Villapondo. Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavoda and Dave Schilling. Senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr. Our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis for Wondery. Was there a crime committed?

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