Three deaths linked to tainted ice cream in Kansas, prompting recall

Three patients at a Kansas hospital have died after eating Blue Bell ice cream tainted with listeria, but food-borne illness was not the sole cause of their deaths, health officials said Saturday.

"These people had been in and out of the hospital for other reasons," Sara Belfry, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the Los Angeles Times. "This was a contributing cause, not the only cause."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said five people in all were infected, all of whom were being treated in the same hospital for unrelated problems. Four of the victims drank milkshakes made with a single serving of Blue Bell's Scoops ice cream at the hospital, a finding "that strongly suggests their infections were acquired in the hospital," the CDC said.

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