Food Poisoning Law Blog : Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : PritzkerLaw : Food Safety, Outbreaks & Recalls

Almost a year after Nestle Toll House cookie dough was linked to a multi-state outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, the company has found Salmonella contamination in a sample of chocolate morsels made at its plant in Burlington, Wisconsin.

Nestle spokeswoman Laurie MacDonald told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper that the positive test in chips occurred several weeks ago at the plant. She says there is no recall or Salmonella outbreak associated with the finding, which prompted a cleaning of the plant and many additional tests that produced negative results.

Cyndi Armstrong, public health nurse for the Western Racine County Health Department, said Nestle informed her department of the positive test on Thursday morning.

In 2009, Nestle's recall of Toll House cookie dough became one of the biggest food safety stories of the year. E. coli O157:H7 -- usually found in raw beef -- had not previously been associated with refrigerated dough.

Nearly 70 people across the country were sickened in the outbreak before it was brought under control. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 25 people were hospitalized and seven developed HUS E coli, or hemolytic uremic syndrome, the leading cause of E. coli deaths.

The E. coli problem in cookie dough reappeared last month at Nestle's plant in Danville, Virginia, but it was caught before a recall was necessary. At the time, Nestle said it was switching to heat-treated flour in hopes to control the bacteria. National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen is representing victims from the 2009 outbreak.

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The Food and Drug Administration is working with Nestle USA to pinpoint the source of E. coli O157:H7 that has been found once again in Toll House cookie dough.

The company's cookie dough was linked last year to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that sickened 80 people in 31 states, including 35 who were hospitalized and 10 who developed life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen, which practices extensively in the area of HUS E coli litigation, represented victims of the outbreak.

On Monday, Nestle's improved detection system found the pathogen in two product samples before they left the factory in Danville, Virginia, The results were immediately reported to FDA. The plant is shut down for two weeks while Nestle converts to using heat-treated flour that will kill E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, Campylobacter and other harmful foodborne bacteria.

Nestle said there will be no recall of product associated with the latest findings because none of the contaminated dough left the plant

.

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There's still a chance that more people will become infected in the Nestle E. coli outbreak, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued its final update on the cookie dough outbreak that has sickened at least 80 individuals -- mostly young women -- since early March.

Of the 80 confirmed cases, 35 people have been hospitalized and 10 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious complication that results in kidney damage and can trigger other major health problems. E. coli O157:H7 infections such as those experienced in the Nestle Toll House refrigerated dough outbreak can be deadly, but no deaths were reported in this outbreak.

According to the CDC, the disease spread over 31 states. The biggest clusters were found in Minnesota (8); Illinois (7); Washington (6); Colorado (6); California (5); Massachusetts (4); Ohio (3) and Texas (3).

Pritzker Olsen attorneys, one of the leading food safety and food poisoning law firms in the country, is currently representing E. coli O157:H7 victims and is accepting cases from the Nestle Toll House outbreak.. Out firm has the resources and experience to take on companies as big as Nestle to make recoveries for victims who ate raw cookie dough contaminated with this potentially lethal pathogen.

The Food and Drug Administration and the CDC continue to warn consumers not to eat any varieties of the recalled Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough due to the risk of contamination with E. coli O157:H7. This includes Nestle Toll House cookie dough that does not say "New Batch'' on the labeling.

On June 29, the FDA  announced a finding of E. coli O157:H7 in a sample of prepackaged and previously unopened Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough collected at Nestle's cookie dough plant in Danville, Virginia. Further lab testing showed that the strain in the sample was not the outbreak strain -- so there is still no microbiological smoking gun linking the outbreak to the cookie dough.

But federal officials and state health departments collected strong epidemiological evidence in their interviews with victims -- most of whom said they ate uncooked Nestle Toll House cookie dough before falling ill. To this day, the government warns consumers not even to open the potentially contaminated dough to bake with it, because it could be accidentally ingested or cross-contaminate a kitchen surface.

If you or a loved one were among those sickened in this outbreak, or if you became ill with symptoms of E. coli after eating raw Nestle cookie dough, call an E. coli lawyer at Pritzker Olsen at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete one of our online E. coli compensation consultation forms for a free case consultation.

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By FRED PRITZKER

Minneapolis, July 15, 2009 -- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that Nestle is back in business making and selling refrigerated cookie dought following the Nestle outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 associated with this popular and no doubt profitable product.

As of July 10, 2009, CDC reported that 76 people from 31 states have been infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7. As of that date, 35 people had been hospitalized, including 11 with a serious complication call HUS, or hemolytic uremic syndrome. No one has died.

The decision to start selling the product again was made despite the fact that E. coli O157:H7 was found in an unopened package of cookie dough. This strain was not the same as the outbreak strain cultured from stool samples from outbreak survivors -- meaning, most likely, that Nestle cookie dough had a least two separate strains of the deadly pathogen.

Following the June 19, 2009, warning from the FDA not to eat these products, the plant that produced them was shut down, tested and cleaned. According to today's FDA update, part of which is reprinted below, Nestle switched suppliers for the main ingredients and is now back in business producing refrigerated cookie dough:

"However, after a plant shutdown, an investigation, and a cleanup, Nestle is now using main ingredients from new suppliers and is making the cookie dough again. These newly made products are not part of the ongoing recall and are not associated with any illness outbreaks or known contamination. Consumers can identify the newly made products by looking for labels with shields that say "new batch" on them; these batches are not part of the current recall."

It's ironic that by switching suppliers and making a two-word label change, Nestle gets a "do-over'' while the outbreak victims are stuck with a long recovery, medical bills, lost wages and a terrible memory of an illness they will never forget.

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Investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently found two cleanliness flaws at the cookie dough plant in  Danville, Virginia, that spawned the multi-state Nestle E. coli outbreak.

The four investigators signed a report July 9 that said the workmanship of certain hopper valves "does not allow proper cleaning.'' The hoppers hold dry ingredients in the cookie dough prep room.

The same team observed ice build-up on overhead pipes on June 18. The pipes, which transport a processing aid to mixers on four production lines, dripped condensation onto a metal rake used by workers to scrape cookie dough from the mixer into a trough for transport to the filling line. The observation was: "Lack of appropriate design to enable manufacturing systems to be maintained in an appropriate sanitary condition.''

The flaws were listed as "observations'' and Nestle is being given a chance to object to them or implement corrective action before the FDA would make any decision about compliance of food safety rules.

Meanwhile, these and other Nestle plant inspection records are being reviewed by national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys as part of its own investigation into the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak that has sickened at least 72 people in 30 states. The firm's review of previous inspection records at the Danville plant found four areas of concern uncovered at the plant in 2006 and a steadfast refusal by Nestle over the past several years  to disclose internal records about consumer complaints.

In 2004, FDA investigators found headings for two consumer complaints about cookie dough:One for a foreign object in the dough and another involving insects found in the cookie dough.

"The firm refused to offer details on these complaints,'' the inspection report said.

Pritzker Olsen is one of the few law firms in the country practicing extensively in foodborne illness litigation. Our firm already is representing some victims in the Nestle recall and cookie dough outbreak and is continuing to accept new cases. To contact an E. coli  lawyer at Pritzker Olsen, call toll-free 1-888-377-8900 or complete one of our online forms for a free case consultation from an attorney.

The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have said that at least  two different strains of E. coli O157:H7 have been associated with Nestle refrigerated Toll House cookie dough and consumers have been warned not to eat the product in any variety. But so far, health investigators haven't been able to pinpoint where the contamination originated inside the Danville production facility.

FDA's plant inspection reports dating to 2004 do not show the plant out of compliance, but the 2006 inspection found four "deficiencies'' that were discussed with Nestle. According to the FDA report, these were:

• Three live ant-like insects along a wall of the powdered sugar dump station in the cookie dough manufacturing area.
• Dirty stainless steel equipment and utensils in a bin marked as "clean'' in the cookie dough cleaning area.
• Clear liqid dripping from an overhead line in the liquid egg receiving bay.
• Equipment not functioning to properly remove trays of cookie dough on one production line.

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