How a Salad Bar Became America's First Bioterror Scene

Healthcare Scandal Investigations · Sep 21, 2026 · 18m

How a Salad Bar Became America's First Bioterror Scene

A small Oregon town of about ten thousand people suddenly suffered 751 cases of severe gastroenteritis in September 1984, and the official answer was only "poor food-handler hygiene." But investigators would later link a plastic bag of light-brown liquid, carried under a jacket and called "salsa," to coordinated contamination at salad bars - so how did a commune’s laboratory equipment end up rewriting the definition of domestic terrorism?

In this episode, we tell who was involved, where and when the illnesses occurred, and how public…